Potential Evaluation of Electro Mechano Gram (EMG) for Osteoporosis Detection

Abstract

Good health of bones is of the utmost importance to human beings. Smart materials like lead zirconate titanate (PZT) patches are small in size and carry less weight, which makes them most apt for biomedical structural health monitoring (BSHM). In the past, focus on the development of low-cost non-invasive techniques for real-time monitoring of critical bones has been undertaken as an alternative to current diagnosis techniques such as dual x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA), which is not portable and emits radiations. This paper presents a study to evaluate a previously developed non-bonded piezo sensor (NBPS)-based diagnostic technique for non-invasive detection of osteoporosis, in the framework of the electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) technique. As part of the study, the experimental trials in the paper are performed for comparing DEXA and bone electro-mechano gram (BEMG) on healthy subjects as well as those with osteoporosis. It was found that BEMG identified structural system for healthy and osteoporotic subjects were quite different leading to a new technique to identify osteoporosis.