Study Correlating Lead (Pb) Level Exposure and Bone Shock Absorption Capacity Based on Damping Associated With Higher Modes of Vibration.

Noninvasive vibration testing is one of the tools for characterizing the biomechanical properties of bones and muscle groups in humans and animals. They present alternatives for evaluating bone health quality and may serve as early indicators for bone fragility and bone-related diseases. In recent years, a vibration-based bone shock absorption (BSA) method has shown potential to relate the damping capacity associated with the fundamental (first) vibration modes for developing dynamic bone quality indicators for osteoporosis patients. This research presents a study of early life (birth to age 78 months) lead (Pb) exposure on the damping capacity (bone fragility measures) with the bone shock absorption method. The damping ratio corresponding to few vibration modes is extracted and analyzed using clinical bone shock absorption data of patients with different Pb exposure levels. A method is developed for clustering and identifying three dominant vibration modes and their corresponding damping ratio. The statistical correlation between the damping parameters associated with higher vibration modes and Pb exposure level is presented here. This study highlights the importance of analyzing higher vibration modes and their damping capacity, which could be used to predict early diagnostics precursors of the bone- and/or muscle-related conditions or disorders.