The Role of Fascia Around the Patellar Tendon in Force Transmission: An Experimental Study on Sheep Stifle Joint

Myofascial force transmission was explained in different studies via extra, inter, and intramuscular pathways. In this work the role of fascia tissue around patellar tendon in force transmission was studied. In standard quasi static tension tests external loads were applied to stifle joint samples. Two types of experiments were performed, in which at the first one intact patellar tendon with tissue milieu was used as tissue sample, and at the second one its fascia tissue carefully removed. With applying a 5 mm axial displacement in both steps, results for force-displacement diagrams are collected. Compared results determined the linear distribution of transmitted force during the process. More than 15-20% decrement in total force transmission was observed by carefully removing the fascia tissue around the patellar tendon.