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Introduction: There is an increase of age related diseases such as hip joint arthritis, something that is often treated with hip replacement surgery. The aim of this study was to quantify movement function and its effect on quality of life in persons treated with hip implant, in comparison to matched asymptomatic controls.

Patients/Materials and Methods: This is an ongoing study, and so far, 2 asymptomatic subjects (CTRL, age 50 ± 13 years, BMI 23 ± 2), and 4 subjects with hip implant (HIP, age 51 ± 15 years, BMI 25 ± 3), have been analyzed. The HIP group received their implant 2.6 ± 1.1 years ago and finished their rehabilitation 1.6 ± 1.1 years ago. Hip dysfunction and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (HOOS) was used to assess the subject's hip function and its associated problems. A functional calibration (flexion/abduction movements) was done and each subject then performed 5 repetitions of gait (approx. 25 left/right gait cycles). Movement was registered with a custom-developed portable motion sensor system, where each sensor consisted of a tri-axial accelerometer and gyroscope. Sensors were placed on pelvis and each thigh and shank. Further calculations were done in MATLAB (v7.12 R2011a, Mathworks). Cosine rotation matrices were extracted by functional sensor-to- segment-calibration and sensor fusion [1], and hip and knee angles were obtained as Euler angles.

Results: Preliminary results indicated larger range in hip rotation and smaller range of knee flexion during gait in HIP group than in the CTRL group (Fig. 1). HOOS profile (Fig. 2) indicated that hip function during sports (SP) and the general quality of life (QOL) were lower in the HIP group.

Fig. 1. 

Mean and SD of hip and knee angle over 15 gait cycles in one HIP subject (blue) as compared with the CTRL group (black). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Figure optionsFig. 2. 

HOOS profiles in HIP (blue square) and CTRL group (black). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Figure options

Discussion and conclusions: Motion patterns during gait seemed to be negatively affected in subjects with hip implant, even after the rehabilitation program was completed and even though the HOOS profiles indicated a relative good hip function.

Reference

• [1]
• J. Favre, B.M. Jolles, O. Siegrist, K. Aminian

• Quaternion-based fusion of gyroscopes and accelerometers to improve 3D angle measurement