According to a recent news release from Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, a new tool designed to enhance the view of muscles has been designed and provides implications for predicting orthopaedic surgery outcomes.

James Wakeling, MA, PhD, biomedical physiology and kinesiology, school of engineering science, developed the device that reportedly uses ultrasound imaging, 3D motion-capture technology and proprietary data-processing software to scan and capture 3D maps of the muscle structure. Wakeling spotlights the process in which the software processes the data as its key component, “Now, we can get people to do muscle contractions and we can actually see how the structure of the muscle changes,” he says.

Wakeling adds that a key goal in his research is to enhance the current muscle models used in musculoskeletal stimulation software designed to predict how patients move and the forces exerted upon their joints. The press release reports that the technology can capture information about muscle contraction including how the muscle shape changes, how it bulges, or how the internal muscle fibers become more curved.

“We’re poised to start making new observations and insights,” Wakeling says. He adds that he hopes these observations and further research will potentially yield new software programs to predict the outcome of orthopaedic surgeries, such as tendon-transfers for treating conditions like pediatric cerebral palsy.

Source: Simon Fraser University