Investigation of knee joint cartilage thickness measurement using vibration analysis

Cartilage is a soft, bright, bluish white and slippery tissue surrounding the ends of the bones that forms the joint and providing the ability of sliding over each other to the bones. Aging, accidents, injuries, congenital joint disorders, former inflammatory or rheumatic diseases can cause articular cartilage degeneration, fluid loss and thinning in cartilage. In this manner the distance between the bones forming the joint is shortened. In this thesis, as a non-invasive method, it was initially aimed to perform analysis recording the vibrations which emerges due to muscle fatigue over the patella bone in human knee. Afterwards utilizing vibration properties knowledge it was tried to determine whether articular cartilage thickness can be detected or not. For this purpose, piezoelectric vibration transducer, a computer and a special software for the purpose of making recording and analyzes with an amplifier suitable to the transducer are utilized. Additionally muscle contractions generating vibrations and vibration records simultaneously to the surface electromyography are saved. In the case of achieving success with this new method of which preliminary experiments were conducted, physicians will have the ability of acquiring information about the status of the knee joint cartilage within a few minutes. Keywords: Knee joint cartilage vibration, analysis of the vibrational wave, DASYLAB, piezoelectric sensors.