Pre- and post-operation gait assessment
For a number of medical situations movement analysis is required after a stroke for example, or an accident that resulted in serious muscle or skeletal injuries. Movement analysis is also important in sports sciences for performance enhancement and injury prevention. In order to perform such an analysis, accurate knowledge of human functional anatomy is obviously required. The ability to visualise and manipulate anatomical objects and thus computer simulate human anatomy is therefore an indispensable medical tool. Moreover, software presentation of human anatomy facilitates effective biomedical engineering. The MULTISENSE project has developed a multi-sensor and multi-modal interface focused on portraying three dimensional muscle and skeletal structures. It is multi-modal since the MULTISENSE application is capable of multi-point body tracking, equipped with haptic interface, able of speech recognition and synthesis. Data collected from the many sensors are synchronised offering both conventional imaging modalities like computer tomography (CT) and unconventional organ representations. The developed application performs a dual task as it tracks the interaction of objects and evaluates a patient. Small tracking volume and real time are prerequisites for effective object tracking. In contrast, patient evaluation demands bigger volumes and not necessarily real time. The MULTISENSE application not only successfully addresses both tasks but also easily switches from one use to the other. This exceptionally friendly user application has been designed to facilitate clinical relevance and substantially aid the medical professional. Moreover, the optical object tracking solution reduces installation costs since it allows multiple usage of expensive hardware. Armed with this innovative optical system the integrated application estimates joint range movement and location, and segment length. A patient's pre- and post-operation walking ability can now be accurately evaluated.