Technological advancements in the analysis of human motion and posture management through digital devices

Abstract

Technological development of motion and posture analyses is rapidly progressing, especially in rehabilitation settings and sport biomechanics. Consequently, clear discrimination among different measurement systems is required to diversify their use as needed. This review aims to resume the currently used motion and posture analysis systems, clarify and suggest the appropriate approaches suitable for specific cases or contexts. The currently gold standard systems of motion analysis, widely used in clinical settings, present several limitations related to marker placement or long procedure time. Fully automated and markerless systems are overcoming these drawbacks for conducting biomechanical studies, especially outside laboratories. Similarly, new posture analysis techniques are emerging, often driven by the need for fast and non-invasive methods to obtain high-precision results. These new technologies have also become effective for children or adolescents with non-specific back pain and postural insufficiencies. The evolutions of these methods aim to standardize measurements and provide manageable tools in clinical practice for the early diagnosis of musculoskeletal pathologies and to monitor daily improvements of each patient. Herein, these devices and their uses are described, providing researchers, clinicians, orthopedics, physical therapists, and sports coaches an effective guide to use new technologies in their practice as instruments of diagnosis, therapy, and prevention.

Keywords: Gait analysis; Inertial measurement unit; Motion capture; Posture; Rasterstereography; Wearable devices.

Figure 1

Markers setup for Vicon and markerless caption for Kinect cameras[28]. A: Markers setup for Vicon; B: Markerless caption for Kinect cameras.

Figure 2

Spatial agreement of Microsoft Kinect and Azure Kinect cameras with respect to the Vicon system. Errors are represented as means ± SD of the 3D Euclidean distances between according joints. ^aP < 0.05, ^bP < 0.01[28].

Figure 3

Body position of the seven inertial measurement units of Movit System.

Figure 4

Flow chart of the gait analysis approach levels. A guide explaining when it is enough a markerless gait analysis and when it is needed a marker based gait analysis.

Figure 5

Body position of the digital landmarks of PostureScreen Mobile app. Frontal and side view.