Introduced here are techniques for digitally characterizing the movement of a subject in order to detect the presence of a disorder or monitor the progression of the disorder. More specifically, one or more angular features can be identified that define how certain part(s) of the human body move relative to other part(s) of the human body. These angular feature(s) can be used, for example, to affirmatively diagnose instances of a disorder, eliminate a disorder as the source of symptoms experienced by a subject, generate confidence scores that can be used to assist in diagnosing a subject, monitor disorder progression due to treatment or lack thereof, etc.

The present invention relates to a method, such as a surgical method for assisting a surgeon for placing screws in the spine using a robot attached to a passive structure. The present invention also related to a method, such as a surgical method for assisting a surgeon for removing volumes in the body of a patient using a robot attached to a passive structure and to a device to carry out said methods. The present invention further concerns a device suitable to carry out the methods according to the present invention.

Devices and methods are provide for facilitating registration and calibration of surface imaging systems. Tracking marker support structures are described that include one or more fiducial reference markers, where the tracking marker support structures are configured to be removably and securely attached to a skeletal region of a patient. Methods are provided in which a tracking marker support structure is attached to a skeletal region in a pre-selected orientation, thereby establishing an intraoperative reference direction associated with the intraoperative position of the patient, which is employed for guiding the initial registration between intraoperatively acquired surface data and volumetric image data. In other example embodiments, the tracking marker support structure may be employed for assessing the validity of a calibration transformation between a tracking system and a surface imaging system. Example methods are also provided to detect whether or not a tracking marker support structure has moved from its initial position during a procedure.

A system for inducing respiration according to one embodiment of the present invention comprises: an imaging unit for picking a respiration image of a patient; a respiration signal conversion unit for obtaining a respiration signal of the patient by image processing, and tracking and analyzing the respiration image of the patient obtained from the imaging unit; and a respiration determination unit for determining one or more of whether the obtained respiration signal is suitable for radiation treatment, whether the obtained respiration signal is stable, and whether a matching score between the respiration signal of the patient and a guide respiration is greater than a predetermined reference value; and a respiration guide unit for providing the respiration signal of the patient, obtained from the respiration signal conversion unit, together with a stored guide signal.

Described embodiments provide a system and method for measuring surface deformation and strain using digital image correlation of a surface of a test object. A data acquisition system acquires images of the surface. The surface has a unique surface pattern to facilitate image acquisition. The images are grouped into one or more image sets. Three dimensional image correlation is performed on each of the image sets to determine deformation and strain data. The deformation and strain data from the image sets are stitched into one dataset. Principal strains and lines of non-extension (LoNEs) directions are determined. One or more LoNEs streamlines and lines of maximum and minimum extensions are determined. Visualizations for the strain magnitudes, LoNE streamlines, maximum and minimum extension streamlines are generated in three dimensions.

The present invention provides a MEMS sensor guidance system mounted on a surgical instrument and uses the MEMS sensor to determine Inertial Measurement Units to track rotation and acceleration in all three spatial directions. Further the invention provides a method of surgery in which a reference axis, a loci, and a depth are defined and the instrument including the sensor cluster of the invention is placed in relation to the y-axis and x-axis and following the working end is aligned and the orientation and depth data display is observed to aid in maintaining the desired instrument.

The present invention provides an apparatus for the measurement and monitoring of the breathing volume of a subject. In certain embodiments, the invention further provides a method of using the apparatus to diagnose a subject as suffering from a respiratory disorder. In other embodiments, the apparatus and method can be used to monitor the breathing volume of a subject, while compensating for random body movement of the subject during the monitoring period.

In a method and apparatus for respiration-correlated computed tomography imaging, a patient-specific breathing curve is recorded and is evaluated online, and a CT scan, providing a number of raw images of a region of interest of a patient, is controlled synchronously with the patient-specific breathing curve according to the results of the online evaluation.

Image data can be obtained with an imaging device. A location of the imaging device relative to a subject can be determined. A location of an instrument can be tracked relative to the subject using two or more tracking systems operating with different tracking modalities. Also, the tracked location of the instrument can be illustrated relative to the image data.

A surgical system includes a surgical tool, a tracking system configured to obtain tracking data indicative of positions of the surgical tool relative to an anatomical feature, an acoustic device, and a computer system programmed to control the acoustic device to provide acoustic feedback to a user based on the tracking data.