"A bit of Hollywood"

Posted by Coco on January 28th, 2019

At the Marienstift Arnstadt, there is a Laboratory for Movement Analysis since 2001, to examine the progress of patients with modern technology.

The black blinds are lowered, no ray of light falls into the room. Instead, the elongated space, which at first glance reminds of a gymnasium with its sober sobriety and PVC coating, is illuminated by artificial light. Dr. Andrea Franz sits sideways at a desk with a large computer screen. Prior to that, she used double-sided tape to glue dozens of small plastic balls and two electrodes to her bare lower legs and feet. Now she asks the child to run across the room. "Quite normal," she says. Once, twice, three times - up to 20 times, Andrea Franz lets the child walk across the 13-meter colored measuring corridor in the middle of the room and the force plates embedded in the floor until they are satisfied with the results and the small one Patient is gradually impatient.

"We can do some Hollywood here, too"

The markers that adhere to the child's legs are covered with a reflective material and are simultaneously flashed and filmed by 13 infrared cameras distributed throughout the room. In this way, the movements of the balls and thus of the patient can be accurately captured and digitally displayed. In addition, Andrea Franz uses the two electrodes to measure muscle activity. On her screen is now a kind of avatar, a human skeleton. With a red left and green right leg, it stabs across the room - the graphic image of her little patient. "Yes," confirms Andrea Franz, head of the Laboratory for Movement Analysis at the Nonstarter Marienstift, grinning, "we can do a bit of Hollywood here as well". By using the same system as the "Lord of the Rings" or "Avatar" filmmakers, she has been able to impress many a patient. And finally brought to undergo the completely painless examination.

The digital analysis provides objective and three-dimensional data

The measurement results are compared with standard data. Curves indicate where the gait pattern of the patient deviates from the norm and if and where misalignment of the feet is present. "With the naked eye you could not see much, for example, the coordination of the muscles or the forces acting on the joints," explains sports scientist Franz. "In addition, gait analyzes, in which doctors or physiotherapists only observe the patient, are always subjective and not repeatable. "

By contrast, the digital analysis provides objective and even three-dimensional data, the computer simply sees more. Not only diagnostic data such as x-rays and MRI images could be supplemented and specified with the data, but also the success of therapy after treatment.

A tool with "incredibly much expressiveness"

To interpret the results of the movement laboratory and to draw conclusions for the treatment is the task of Dr. med. Christine Bollmann, chief physician of the Pediatric Orthopedics Clinic, and her colleagues: "Once a week, an interdisciplinary team meets and advises which therapy makes sense for each individual case." Digital motion analysis is a diagnostic tool with "incredibly much informative value", Nevertheless, she was not the sole yardstick and certainly not a standard investigation - it would be a meaningful question behind it. Because in the service catalog of the statutory funds, it is not included. "Nevertheless, legally insured persons do not have to pay us. That's a performance we provide to our patients. "

An average of 200 children is examined each year in the Arnstadt laboratory, including several who, for example, as a result of premature birth or early childhood brain damage, neurological deficits exist, which are expressed in an altered gait pattern.

Specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of foot deformities in children

It has long since become common knowledge that the people of Arnstadt specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of foot deformities in children. The small patients are not only from all over Thuringia but from all over Germany in the Marienstift, where Thuringia's first laboratory for clinical motion analysis is located, which is also affiliated to the nation's largest children's orthopedics department. In 2001, the clinic management has already decided to buy it, and in 2013 the laboratory was thoroughly modernized.

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Coco

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Coco
Joined: May 17th, 2018
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