Abstract
Lachman test is one of the manual tests for examining the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). An examiner discriminates a degree of the ACL injury by feeling of a stress on the finger. Because the feeling is subjective consideration, the dicrimination depends much on past experiences. However, a non-expert examiner makes a deviation about the discrimination due to insufficient experiences. In addition, the feeling is not so constant, it results in another deviation even though an expert examiner performs. Hence, this study has developed a quantitative measurement system for Lachman test to reduce the deviation, and to provide an objective criterion. This measurement system consists of finger braces and force sensors on each fingers. Although a pressure sensor needs to calibrate in general, the calibration value of this system depends on difference of finger diameters. Keeping system accuracy requires a stable calibration method. This study proposes a calibration method adopted to the finger diameters by using Fuzzy Control. In the experiment, the proposed system examined both hands of young male, resulted high accuracy in low loading. A futur work is to evaluate reliability of this system in clinical situation.
