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Development of a real-time three-dimensional spinal motion measurement system for clinical practice

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Abstract

This paper presents an inertial based sensing system for real-time three-dimensional measurement of human spinal motion, in a portable and non-invasive manner. Applications of the proposed system range from diagnosis of spine injury to postural monitoring, on-field as well as in the lab setting. The system is comprised of three inertial measurement sensors, respectively attached and calibrated to the head, torso and hips, based on the subject’s anatomical planes. Sensor output is transformed into meaningful clinical parameters of rotation (twist), flexion-extension and lateral bending of each body segment, with respect to calibrated global reference space. Modeling the spine as a compound flexible pole model allows dynamic measurement of three-dimensional spine motion, which can be animated and monitored in real-time using our interactive GUI. The accuracy of the proposed sensing system has been verified with subject trials using a VICON optical motion measurement system. Experimental results indicate an error of less than 3.1° in segment orientation tracking.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the Industrial Partnerships program of the British Columbia Innovation Council and the Idea to Innovation (I2I) program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). The authors would like to thank Dr. Naznin Virji-Babul of the Centre for Human Movement Analysis (CHUMA) in the Queen Alexandra Centre for Children’s Health for giving them access to the VICON system, and Dr. Timothy Inglis of the University of British Columbia and Jung Keun Lee of the University of Victoria for their constructive comments. They also thank Ed Haslam of the University of Victoria for providing the necessary hardware modification of the VICON system.

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  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, PO Box 3055 STN CSC, Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 3P6, Canada

    Christina Goodvin, Edward J. Park, Kevin Huang & Kelly Sakaki

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  1. Christina Goodvin
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  2. Edward J. Park
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  3. Kevin Huang
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  4. Kelly Sakaki
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Correspondence to Edward J. Park.

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Goodvin, C., Park, E.J., Huang, K. et al. Development of a real-time three-dimensional spinal motion measurement system for clinical practice. Med Bio Eng Comput 44, 1061–1075 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-006-0132-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-006-0132-3

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