A novel approach to muscle functional recovery monitoring by its free vibration measurement

TL;DR

This paper introduces a contactless laser-based method to monitor muscle recovery by measuring its natural frequency through vibration analysis, demonstrated on a post-ACL reconstruction case.

Contribution

It presents a novel, contactless approach using laser sensors and modal analysis to accurately assess muscle recovery, which is a new application in this field.

Findings

Effective contactless measurement of muscle vibrations.

Accurate extraction of muscle natural frequency.

Potential for non-invasive muscle recovery monitoring.

Abstract

The study shows a potential to monitor functional recovery of a muscle by its natural frequency measurement. A novel approach is presented, in which vibrations of the muscle of interest are measured in a contactless manner using laser displacement sensor and the measured vibration signals are analyzed by an advanced technique of experimental modal analysis to extract fundamental natural frequency of the muscle with high accuracy. A case study of functional status recovery monitoring of a rectus femoris muscle, which become anthropic after ACL reconstruction, is presented.