Design of a New System for Upper Extremity Movement Ability Assessment

One of the methods used in upper extremity function assessment is the Range of Motion (ROM) measurements. In practice, these measurements are performed by a clinicians' personal observations and/or goniometric measurements. In these measurements, there are some problems related to repeatibility and reliability criterias. In this study, a novel system which contains only a single camera to perform ROM calculations objectively in upper extremity is suggested. For this purpose shoulder and elbow flexion movements were recorded and analyzed. The system was compared with which was known as a “Gold Standard” system. The nine male and nine female volunteers were participated in the study. Kinect camera was used to record movements of upper limb. The Kinect camera results were compared with that of OptiTrack camera system. The shoulder and elbow flexion angles were computed for both systems. The agreement between the two systems were examined statistically by using the computed ROM values. Bland-Altman plots revealed the agreement within 95 % interval of confidence, between the two systems for shoulder flexion and elbow flexion in both males and females. This study provides evidence for the suitability of the proposed system for a clinical work.