Technological advancements in the analysis of human motion and posture management through digital devices

Abstract

Technological development of motion and posture analyses is rapidly progressing, especially in rehabilitation settings and sport biomechanics. Consequently, clear discrimination among different measurement systems is required to diversify their use as needed. This review aims to resume the currently used motion and posture analysis systems, clarify and suggest the appropriate approaches suitable for specific cases or contexts. The currently gold standard systems of motion analysis, widely used in clinical settings, present several limitations related to marker placement or long procedure time. Fully automated and markerless systems are overcoming these drawbacks for conducting biomechanical studies, especially outside laboratories. Similarly, new posture analysis techniques are emerging, often driven by the need for fast and non-invasive methods to obtain high-precision results. These new technologies have also become effective for children or adolescents with non-specific back pain and postural insufficiencies. The evolutions of these methods aim to standardize measurements and provide manageable tools in clinical practice for the early diagnosis of musculoskeletal pathologies and to monitor daily improvements of each patient. Herein, these devices and their uses are described, providing researchers, clinicians, orthopedics, physical therapists, and sports coaches an effective guide to use new technologies in their practice as instruments of diagnosis, therapy, and prevention.

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“…These are based on the use of videos captured by video cameras or mobile smart devices for further analysis. There are different applications for mobile phones or software for computers, such as Kinovea ® [ 38 , 39 ]. In 2020, a study evaluated the reliability and the agreement of this software with a three-dimensional motion capture system for gait analysis in healthy subjects [ 40 ].…”

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“…A markerless system was used to analyze the kinematic movements in the sagittal plane. The Walker View (TecnoBody ® , Dalmine, Italy) is a treadmill with a markerless system that automatically identifies anatomical landmarks through AI [ 15 ] valid for both spatiotemporal parameters and angular displacements [ 18 , 23 , 24 ]. It is composed of an instrumented treadmill equipped with eight load cells (composed by strain gauges, sampling frequency 100 Hz) and a 3D camera for motion capture (Microsoft Kinect v2, sampling frequency 30 Hz) available for sports, medicine, rehabilitation, and gait analysis.…”

“…In this context, the optoelectronic infrared multi-camera motion analysis system is the most accurate approach for analyzing movement [ 14 ]. However, these systems are expensive and subject to certain conditions such as a dedicated laboratory, long preparation times, or highly trained clinicians identifying the anatomical landmarks correctly to place the reflective markers [ 15 , 16 ]. To overcome some of these limitations, instrumented treadmills [ 17 , 18 , 19 ] and inertial measurement unit (IMU) systems [ 20 , 21 ] are spreading as a valid alternative to accomplish gait or run analyses in different environments, overcoming some of the previously mentioned limitations.…”

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“…Excel 2007 makes statistics and summary of the data, and uses independent sample t-test and correlation analysis to analyze the correlation and difference of the data. If P < 0.05, there is significant difference between the mean values of the two samples; if P < 0.01, there is very significant difference between the mean values of the two samples [21,22].…”