New Technology for Musculoskeletal Testing

We will expand the usage and scope of clinical testing of musculoskeletal function in a practical ameaningful manner. Musculoskeletal conditions are among the most frequently occurring medical problUnited States. The problem is becoming more prevalent with an aging population. While treatment modasophisticated, methods for evaluation of function are quite limited. The specific goal of this projecapabilities of current methodology by applying a newly developed point-cluster technique. This poinrepresents a novel approach to the measurement of complex movement of the body from markers placed omethod provides a potentially more accurate and reproducible measure of three-dimensional segmentalother method where markers are placed on the skin. A key aspect of the development is the utilizatiobased system to facilitate the automatic identification and tracking of points located within the claccomplished by a binary encoded point-cluster matrix. The technique will also be evaluated for relitest population of normal subjects. The successful implementation of this development will expand tclinical functional testing to a wider range of clinical conditions including problems of the lowersubstantial portion of problems encountered with the musculoskeletal system. Thus, a system with thcommercially viable because of its wide range of applications.