2016 Intl. Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), Sept.
21-24, 2016, Jaipur, India
Detection and Prediction of Osteoporosis using Impulse
response technique and Artificial Neural Network
Tejaswini E1,Vaishnavi P2, Sunitha R3
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Amrita School of Engineering, Bengaluru
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
Amrita University
India
tejaswini.rajulu@gmail.com, vaishnavip33@gmail.com,
r_sunitha@blr.amrita.edu
AbstractOsteoporosis is an age related disorder manifested by
skeletal fractures. This has been recognized as an important health
issue mainly in women. Low bone mineral density is the major
cause for osteoporosis. Detection and prediction of osteoporosis is a
major challenge. Detection of osteoporosis helps in determining the
density of the bone and also in the prevention of osteoporotic
fractures in the high risk populations. In this study an easy first
line method has been proposed to detect and predict osteoporosis.
Impulse response test was carried out on the tibial bone for the
detection of osteoporosis with the help of LabVIEW. The vibrations
which were generated by the periodic impact of surgical hammer
were captured by the accelerometer. The recorded analog signal
was examined in frequency domain. The natural frequency of the
vibration was significantly decreased in osteoporosis subjects which
in turn indicate the loss in mechanical strength of the bone and
bone mineral density. Prediction of osteoporosis was performed
using a decision making system such as ANN in Matlab where
factors other than bone mineral density was considered.
Keywords- Osteoporosis, Impulse response, Tibial bone, ANN
I. INTRODUCTION
Osteoporosis is a condition in which the bone becomes porous
and fragile due loss in bone mineral density and gets more
susceptible to fracturing. osteopenia refers to early signs of bone
loss that can turn to osteoporosis. Both osteoporosis and
osteopenia are increasingly found in aging women who have
attained their menopause [5],[1]. The symptoms of osteoporosis
include pain in the bones, or lower back, bone fracture and loss
of height over a course of time [1].
The current major methods which are used to detect
osteoporosis and bone mineral density include Quantitative
Ultrasound, Dual energy X-ray Absorptiometry technique and
Quantitative computed Tomography [5],[4]. These methods
have found to be expensive and are not easily available in many
poor countries [2]. Apart from being expensive these techniques
use radiations like X-rays which are considered to be harmful to
978-1-5090-2029-4/16/$31.00 @2016 IEEE
the human tissue [2]. These concerns in the present day
techniques promote the necessity to opt for an alternative like
impulse response method, which is inexpensive, easy to handle
and could be used as a first line method in the detection of
osteoporosis [2], [4].The human leg is subjected to a lot of
loading conditions which is caused due to various day to day
activities like walking, running etc. Considering the mechanical
and viscoelastic properties of human leg bone, it is considered to
be the apt region to carry out the impulse response test [6]. To
simulate the loading conditions, the bone is subjected to periodic
impulses which are generated using a surgical hammer [1]. The
major parts of the human leg are the femur , tibial shin bone,
fibula and the patella. The shin of the tibia, being one of the
prominent parts of human leg was located and assessment was
carried out [1],[4].
Prediction of osteoporosis helps in evaluating future fracture
risks [3]. Other than Bone mineral density, osteoporosis also
depends upon some other factors like age, weight, height, life-
style etc play a significant role in diagnosis osteoporosis [3]. In
this study artificial neural network is used as the decision
making system. ANN is a model which is used for computations
based on the biological neural networks. ANN is used to
develop any decision making system in various fields of science
and technology. Prediction is carried by considering the factors
other than bone mineral density [3]. Development of a
successful technique of this type would have many clinical
applications such as diagnosis of osteoporosis and predicting the
possibilities of fracture risk.
II. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
A. Data Acquisition
The experimental setup comprises of surgical hammer, ADXL
335 accelerometer [1] and myDAQ which is a product of
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 2016 Intl. Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), Sept. 21-24, 2016, Jaipur, India

National Instruments for data acquisition. ADXL 335 is a 3-axis
accelerometer with signal conditioned voltage outputs [1]. The
sensor captures acceleration with a full scale range of 3g. It can
be used in tilt-sensing applications, as well as dynamic
acceleration resulting from shock or vibrations [1].
The tibial shin bone was located on the human leg and the
sensor was placed at a distance of 3 finger space from the tibial
tuberosity. Figure 1 shows the location of tibial tuberosity and
placement of ADXL 335 sensor. Periodic impulses were
generated using a surgical hammer which was impacted at a
distance of 2-3 cm from the spot where the sensor was placed.
ADXL 335 captures the vibrations which were generated due to
the impact of surgical hammer in X, Y and Z axes. Since the
impact is provided in Y axis, the output generated in X and Z
axes are the only axes which are considered for evaluation. The
output of the sensor which is in the form of voltage was acquired
with the help of myDAQ, which is a portable data acquisition
device.
NIs myDAQ which has ADC and signal condition unit digitizes
the incoming voltage signals and these digitized signals are
interpreted by computer. The sampling rate for the signal to be
acquired was given as 256 Hz and number of samples to be
collected was given as 1024. We acquired the impulse responses
from over 70 subjects under the guidance of an orthopaedic
doctor and also collected their information pertaining to eight
parameters like age, gender, height, weight, history of injury or
surgery, drug history, exercise and associated medical problems.
These eight parameters were considered for prediction of
osteoporosis [3].
. and do not form cycles. The input is provided at the input layer
Tibial
Tuberosity
ADXL 335
Figure 1: Location of Tibial tuberosity and ADXL 335
user interfacing, LabVIEW was chosen as the simulation tool.
The acquired signal was conditioned using a high pass filter and
then were converted to a frequency response using Fast Fourier
Transform and the natural frequency was estimated.
Osteoporosis was detected based on the obtained natural
frequency. Block diagram for data acquisition and signal
conditioning of the impulse response is shown in figure 2.
Figure 2: Block diagram representation for the determination
of Natural frequency
C. Prediction of Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis and future possibilities of fracture could be
predicted using a decision making system. In this study artificial
neural network is used as the decision making system [3]. Feed-
Forward back propagation algorithm is used for the computation
[3]. In feed-forward neural network, connections are fed forward
and it travels from input to hidden layer and then to output layer.
Back propagation is a training algorithm where the values are
fed forward and error is calculated and it is propagated back to
the earlier layers. Here the factors other than bone mineral
density are considered for the prediction.
Eight parameters like age, gender, height, weight, history of
injury or surgery, drug history, exercise and associated medical
problem are considered for the survey and the person was tested
for osteoporosis [3]. A part of the survey was used for initial
training and then was tested to evaluate its performance. Errors
were then mapped back and re-trained until a minimum error
was obtained. Figure 3 depicts the pictorial representation of
inputs, hidden layer and output of the artificial neural network.

B. Detection of Osteoporosis

The acquired signals were then analyzed in LabVIEW which is

an application software. Considering the advantage in graphical

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 2016 Intl. Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), Sept. 21-24, 2016, Jaipur, India
Figure 3: Pictorial representation of inputs, hidden layer
and output
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
A. Detection
The analog voltage signals which were obtained by the impact
of hammer were collected with the help of myDAQ. The
collected data is written into an excel sheet and also displayed in
the graph. In block diagram window shown in figure 4 we can
see that DAQ Assistant icon is connected to the waveform graph
and measurement file in a while loop.
Figure 4: Block diagram window for Data acquisition
The front panel window displays the acquired signals which are
collected from the DAQ card. The signals acquired from the X
axis of the sensor are white in colour and those acquired from Z
are red in colour. Since the given sampling rate is 256 Hz and
number of samples to be acquired is 1024 the signals are
acquired at an interval of every 4 sec. Figure 5 shows the
acquired signals from X and Z axes which are displayed in the
waveform graph.
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Figure 5: Output acquired from X and Z axis of the sensor
The acquired signals are read from the excel file and then
processed using filter. High pass filter of cut off frequency
20Hz was chosen because all data ranging above 20 Hz had to
be collected. High pass filter also helps in removing the baseline
wander and Chebyshev filter of higher order helps in improving
the accuracy in the filtered output. The FFT of the filtered output
was performed in order to determine the natural frequency of the
filtered output. This result is displayed in the graph in figure 6.
Figure 6:Sensor output, filtered output, FFT of the filtered
output
In the above figure 6 Graph 3 displays the output of the acquired
signal. Graph 2 displays the filtered output and graph 1 displays
the natural frequency of the filtered output.
As per our analysis with different subjects, which is shown in
the previous graphs, the natural frequency for a normal person is
identified to be above 100 Hz. Osteopenia is identified to be
between 75 Hz to 100 Hz, and osteoporosis is identified to be
below 75Hz.
 2016 Intl. Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), Sept. 21-24, 2016, Jaipur, India
B. Prediction
A survey of 70 patients was conducted and their details like
Age, Gender, Height, Weight, History of injury or surgery, Drug
history, exercise and associated medical problem were collected.
The collected data was divided into training set and testing set.
The training set of data is used to train the artificial neural
network in MATLAB.Feed-forward back propagation algorithm
was used for the computation.
We could observe that the results from ANN was having one-
one match with the results of detection in terms of frequency for
all the data that we collected. The figure 7 shows the closeness
in the output obtained with respect to the actual acquired data
and predicted data using ANN.
Figure 7: Actual and Predicted output
In the analysis that we did in this study, we also found that
women were more prone to osteoporosis when compared to
men. Figure 8 depicts the variation in natural frequency in men
and women under different age groups.
Figure 8: Variation in natural frequency in men and women
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IV CONCLUSION
The current methods which are used for the detection of
osteoporosis are found to be expensive and require experts to
deal with the equipments. The proposed methods in this study
are easy to work with and inexpensive. Hence this detection and
prediction technique could be used as a first line method to
detect osteoporosis as well as to predict facture risks.
Further this work could be extended by making the impulse
hammer completely automated in order to make the impact force
periodic and also to prevent the disturbances which are caused
due to human contact and other noises. As a part of future work,
the amount of extent each factors influence on osteoporosis and
fracture risks could be analysed by conducting more intense
survey.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to gratefully acknowledge the help of Dr. Suresh
Kumar, Orthopaedic surgeon who assisted us in examining and
acquiring the data from patients.
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