A procedure for the definition of a patient-specific kinematic model of the knee joint: an in-vivo validation

The capability to model human joint motion is a fundamental step towards the definition of effective treatments and medical devices, with an increasing request to adapt the devised models to the specificity of each subject. We present an approach for the definition of subject-specific models of the knee natural motion. The approach is the result of a combination of two different techniques and exploits the advantages of both. It relays upon non invasive measurements that can be performed in vivo, based on which a kinematic model of the natural motion is built, suitable to be extended to the definition of static and dynamic models. Comparison of the model outcomes with in-vivo measurements performed on one subject shows promising results supporting the proposed approach.