Development and clinical bench testing of a Matlab based, user friendly, deployable software application for automatic batch processing of fully instrumented three-dimensional human movement biomechanics data

Gait analysis is the systematic study of human movement. It is used in the assessment and treatment of a variety of medical conditions where normal movement is impaired. The current gold standard method is fully instrumented three-dimensional gait analysis. This uses spatial information from motion capture systems in conjunction with data from force plates. The information is processed with kinematic and kinetic models which output vast amounts of data. For analysis, gait data is separated into individual cycles and normalized from 1-100% where certain events are expected to occur at certain stages of the cycle. This is normally achieved using information from the force plates. In the absence of force plate data this information can be calculated using motion capture data. In addition to their proprietary formats, the majority of motion capture systems use a standard file format (C3D) to output data. Current methods for reading and interpreting these files, to acquire the information commonly used in reporting gait, are complicated, time consuming and require expensive licenses and training. A utility with a straightforward graphical user interface is developed using Matlab. The utility reads C3D files and can be used quickly and easily to present only the relevant information necessary for producing gait reports. The utility includes an algorithm to calculate individual gait cycles from motion capture data where desired. The primary outputs of the utility are 'gait graphs' which display different joint angles over the gait cycle and are a major component of most gait reports. One or multiple C3D files can be input and the utility extracts the angles from each individual gait cycle, normalizes them to a percentage scale, calculates the average and produces a plot. The ability to use motion capture data to calculate some of the parameters assessed by visual gait scoring is also demonstrated.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

msc

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters-pg

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Strathclyde

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Corbett, John

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Murphy, Andrew

DOI

10.48730/zfs1-rg14

Identifier

T14215

Author Identifier

201486759

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:strathclyde:hd76s007s