Improved diagnosis of human joint

Today, among the general population the prevalence of joint disorders is increasing even at younger ages. Since therapeutic means are sparse, early awareness of potential health problems is the most important to timely start adequate prevention. The presented improved approach of acoustic joint assessment (ACOJA) is based on subsequently measured acoustic signals emitted by joints at two different mechanical load conditions with the same measurement setup, and analysing the related relative spectral signal changes. While this approach applies to almost any joint, this paper concentrates on demonstrating the capability of this approach at hip joints. It could be demonstrated that the ACOJA method is sensible enough to allow even quantification of age-related degradations at hip normal biological human joints. It allows even identifying and accounting for gender-related differences in hip joint status. This allows concluding that ACOJA will contribute to enlarge the medical possibilities of non-invasive joint diagnostics.