A marker-less human motion analysis system for motion-based biomarker discovery in knee disorders

In recent years the NHS has been having increased difficulty seeing all low-risk patients, this includes but not limited to suspected osteoarthritis (OA) patients. To help address the increased waiting lists and shortages of staff, we propose a novel method of automated biomarker identification for diagnosis of knee disorders and the monitoring of treatment progression. The proposed method allows for the measurement and analysis of biomechanics and analyse their clinical significance, in both a cheap and sensitive alternative to the currently available commercial alternatives. These methods and results validate the capabilities of standard RGB cameras in clinical environments to capture motion and show that when compared to alternatives such as depth cameras there is a comparable accuracy in the clinical environment. Biomarker identification using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) allows the reduction of the dimensionality to produce the most representative features from motion data, these new biomarkers can then be used to assess the success of treatment and track the progress of rehabilitation. This was validated by applying these techniques on a case study utilising the exploratory use of local anaesthetic applied on knee pain, this allows these new representative biomarkers to be validated as statistically significant (p-value < 0.05).