BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Biomechanics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1496739
This article is part of the Research TopicUse of Digital Human Modeling for Promoting Health, Care and Well-BeingView all 15 articles
A novel approach to rehabilitation progress monitoring of atrophic muscle by contactless measurement of its free oscillations and advanced modal analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland
- 2Gdansk University of Physical Education and Sport, Gdańsk, Pomeranian, Poland
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The study shows a novel approach for monitoring muscle functional recovery by its free vibrations analysis. Contactless measurements of free-decay vibrations are made and by application of an advanced experimental modal analysis the oscillations frequencies are identified with high accuracy. A laser displacement sensor is used to capture oscillations of the selected muscular point. Efficacy of the approach is discussed on the case of functional status recovery of a rectus femoris muscle, which becomes atrophic after ACL reconstruction. Three ACL subjects are considered and the muscle was analyzed in two states: voluntary tension and relaxed. The analysis shows significant changes of the natural frequency of the rectus femoris within the muscle recovery process, with the frequency approaching the value identified in the same muscle of the other, reference leg of the subject. Moreover, the value of a relative difference between natural frequencies identified for two legs of a single subject, ACL and reference legs in ACL subjects, tends within time and within the rehabilitation process to the value determined for reference subjects. The approach demonstrates a potential to reliably measure natural frequency in a muscle. Contactless manner of the measurement assures that vibrations are fully free, not affected by a contact with any probe. The approach has a practical potential to monitor muscular rehabilitation progress, to assess muscular functional status of patients with disfunction, or to evaluate muscular readiness for participation in sport competition.
Keywords: muscle vibrations, muscle atrophy, ACL, Rectus femoris muscle, rehabilitation progress monitoring, eigensystem realization algorithm, Human health
Received: 15 Sep 2024; Accepted: 08 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tomaszewska, Drozdowska and Aschenbrenner. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Agnieszka Tomaszewska, Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland
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