The University of Oviedo, through the Campus of International Excellence, is setting in motion a Laboratory of Clinical Analysis of Movement that will open new lines of research related to the psychomotricity of patients with different illnesses. The initiative, made in collaboration with the Central University Hospital of Asturias (HUCA), will apply the new technologies of motion capture to the monitoring of the evolution of illnesses that affect mobility and to rehabilitation treatments.

The Rector, Vicente Gotor, presented this morning the Laboratory of Clinical Analysis of Movement accompanied by the manager of the Health Area IV, Jaime Rabanal; the Tenured Professor of Pediatrics of the University of Oviedo and director of the area of Pediatric Management and Clinic of the HUCA, Fernando Santos; the specialist in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation of the Valle del Nalón Hospital, Ricardo Llavona Fernández, and the Vice-Rector of Research and Campus of International Excellence, Paz Suárez Rendueles.

The Laboratory will be located at the Research Building of the Campus of Mieres, which is equipped with advanced image capture technologies and a specific software for motion capture. This technology will allow for the evaluation of movement deviations in diverse patologies and the evolution of the illness and the therapeutical interventions applied.

The system that will be used is made up by a set of motion sensors that are fixed in certain anatomical point and a software to capture and analyze the movement. The information provided by the sensors during the capture, alongside a 3D animation software, makes it possible to reproduce the movement translated into a biomechanical model, which in turns leads to a precise analysis of the movement captured.

The service, located at the Research Building of the Campus of Mieres, has cutting-edge technology in the field of motion capture to obtain reference patterns

Fernando Santos, Tenured Professor of Pediatrics of the University of Oviedo and director of the area of Pediatric Management and Clinic of the HUCA, will be the scientific coordinator of the laboratory, which will have as a scientific councilor the specialist in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation of the Valle del Nalón hospital, Ricardo Llavona Fernández, and the Innovation Centre of Mieres, which will be in charge of developing the software required by this type of research.

Some of the objectives of the laboratory include:

• Obtaining reference patterns among the healthy population.
• Characterizing the diverse patologies of the deviations of movement analyzed in relation to the standard of reference established.
• Marking quantitatively the effects of the evolution of the disease and the therapeutical interventions applied on the type of movement analyzed.
• Promoting the collaboration with other regional, national and international specialized centers.
• Developing the specific software adapted to the alterations of the movement that is the object of the research.

  The University of Oviedo will sign a collaboration agreement with the HUCA to develop the research, even though the laboratory is born with the aim of providing a service to the enterity of the Asturian health network.

  This project is an initiative of the Campus of International Excellence of the University of Oviedo, as part of the Cluster of Biomedicine and Health, of which the HUCA is part of its strategical core. The technological equipment of the Laboratory of Clinical Analysis of Movement is part of the Profesionales Digitales program of the Red.es project promoted by the Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness.

  One of the motion capture cameras of the new Laboratory of Clinical Analysis of Movement.

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