Measuring cervical vertebra movements using kinect sensor.

The incidence of cervical vertebra spondylosis is increasing with the pace of life while there is no high-efficient measurement method. This study proposed a non-contact, high-efficient, and high-precisionmethod measuring the cervical vertebra activities which obtains the cervical vertebra activities by combining the function of skeletal tracking and face tracking. A comparison study between the proposed and traditional methods has been conducted here. Statistics shows that the efficiency of the proposed measurement method at least is 6 times faster than modified square shaped goniometers that is the represent of traditional measurement, and it's angular error in average is 0.35°. Moreover, the proposed measuring method has been tested in hospital clinical environment and the results show that the proposed method can be used easily and have little interference.