Force measurement in patellofemoral joint for osteoarthritis patients using labview

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA), is a joint disease which is consider as incurable in nature. The OA causes results in joint damage. Knee osteoarthritis is one of the major disease which causes damages in the cartilage between femur and tibia. The patellofemoral region is mainly involved in knee osteoarthritis. The main aim of this study is to measure the forces during the walking movement in left and right part of patello femoral joint for OA patients and normal subjects. The objective is to design a circuit to measure forces and to test the difference between OA patients and normal subjects. The hardware circuit was designed using NI ELVIS ( National Instrument Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Suite), which is used to interface the sensors with the labVIEW software. The labVIEW software is used to acquire data from the sensors. The circuit was designed using two FSR sensors (Force Sensitive Resistor) which are fitted to the upper part of the patellofemoral joint on right and left knee separately. The forces which are obtained by the walking movement within the duration of three minutes. The measured output shows a decrement in force compare to normal and OA subjects and it also has been identified that right knee force is greater than left knee force.