Paragraph Number

64

As used herein, a "fixation" refers to an apparatus, instrument, structure, device, component, member, system, assembly, step, process, or module structured, organized, configured, designed, arranged, or engineered to connect two structures. The structures may one or the other or both manmade and/or biological tissues, hard tissues such as bones, teeth or the like, soft tissues such as ligament, cartilage, tendon, or the like. Typically, fixation is used as an adjective to describe a device or component or step in securing two structures such that the structures remain connected to each other in a desired position and/or orientation. Fixation devices can also serve to maintain a desired level of tension or redistribute load and stresses experienced by the two structures and can serve to reduce relative motion of one part relative to others. Examples of fixation devices are many and include both those for external fixation as well as those for internal fixation and include, but are not limited to pins, wires, Kirschner wires, screws, anchors, bone anchors, plates, bone plates, intramedullary nails or rods or pins, implants, interbody cages, fusion cages, and the like.

Added by DJM 9 2021