A moment-based technique for the automatic spatial alignment of plantar pressure data

Plantar pressure measurements have many potential clinical applications in the field of orthopaedics. However, the only current routine clinical appli cation of pedobarography is for the identification of high pressure zones i n diabetic patients with neuropathy who are at risk from foot ulceration. F or pedobarography to become a routine clinical tool in orthopaedics, a thor ough knowledge of normal plantar pressure distributions would be required. To date, no large scale studies to define population norms have been conduc ted, probably because of the high cost associated with analysing large quan tities of plantar pressure data. Plantar pressure distributions display a h igh step-to-step variation and, therefore, it is necessary to conduct multi ple trials. Comparison between these trials is difficult, somewhat subjecti ve, and slow, because it must be conducted manually. The present authors ha ve developed a technique to align automatically the spatial components of a series of datasets. The technique then allows predefined parameters to be automatically extracted from the data, hence greatly reducing analysis time . The authors believe that not only does the technique make large scale stu dies economically viable but that it could also form the basis for expert s ystems for the diagnosis of foot pathologies and the prescription of orthos es.