MicroSoft Xbox 360 Hackers Assess Gait, Measure Knee Angle

Are you still using your plastic goniometer?

Maybe its time to throw it away and get the new Microsoft's Xbox 360 to measure your patients' knee angles

The Kinect works, according this National Public Radio podcast by of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology teams winners, Ziyuan Liu:

"...the Kinect actually has two cameras and a laser emitter, so the laser emitter scatters little laser dots around the environment and that one of the cameras senses the distortion in these laser dots to measure depth and the other camera takes in the picture of the environment and correlates that with the depth.

And with that, we're practically able to reconstruct the environment in 3D, but our project focuses on extracting certain points like joints, knee angles."

This "disruptive technology" has the potential to displace physical therapists' jobs.

Physical therapists have traditionally measured gait deviations and knee joint angles using visual assessment for gait and plastic goniometers for knees.

I don't think most physical therapists have much to worry about since we still provide better value for common, high-volume musculoskeletal care than most primary care practitioners and care comparable to orthopedists at a fraction of the cost.

We looked in-depth at physical therapists replacing physicians in hospital settings here.

Thank you to Edwin Linares of the LinkedIn HITECH Professionals networking group for his re-post of "5 Trends That Will Shape the Future in 2012".