A Wireless 3D Posture Monitor for Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis

• Author / Creator

  Woloschuk, Christopher A

• Scoliosis affects 2.5% of adolescents and 90% of these adolescents have mild curves of less than 25°. These adolescents do not currently have any active treatments to prevent curve progression. Literature suggests that exercise-based treatment may be able to help patients with mild scoliosis. Current posture monitoring systems measure posture along the sagittal and/or coronal planes, but neglect the transverse plane. The objective of this research was to develop a 3D posture monitoring system to study the effects of posture training. The developed system used a wireless distributed computing network of orientation sensors and a master processing and feedback unit to compute an individual's posture, provide feedback if correction was required, and stored session information for later analysis. Testing demonstrated that the system possessed sufficient accuracy to measure posture. Volunteers who used the developed system for posture training spent less time in poor posture when feedback was provided for correction.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Sensor fusion
  • Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis
  • Posture monitoring
  • Wireless distributed computing network
  • 3D Spinal posture
  • Biofeedback

• Graduation date

  Fall 2013

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R31G0J33D

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.