Next-generation models using optimized joint center location

Abstract

segments and is therefore clinically significant for the calculation of joint kinematics during motion analysis. Different methods exist to localize joint centers using either predictive methods, based on anthropometric measurements, or functional methods, based on the relative movement of the segments adjacent to the joint. Validations of these methods using medical imaging have been extensively studied in the literature on different groups of subjects. Consequently, methods of correction between the calculated location of the joint center and the exact one, found by medical imaging, were suggested by several authors. Recent studies showed that new age-specific predictive methods could be computed in order to better locate joint coordinate systems. In the future, new techniques could use the exact locations of joint centers, which would be localized by medical imaging, in combination with motion capture techniques using registration techniques; thus, exact kinematics and kinetics of the joints could be computed.