The effectiveness of diagnostic potential of descriptors with the use of selected features of the vibroarthrographic signal

Abstract

Due to its biological conditions, the cartilage of the knee joint is exposed to overuse injuries caused by chronic, repetitive movements that cause microscopic damage, resulting in softening, fibrosis and the formation of fissures called chondromalacia. The friction of cartilage surfaces generates vibrations and acoustic sounds. Vibroarthrography is a non-invasive method of analysing registered mechanical vibrations. The authors compare the six descriptors including the standard and the proposed ones based on selected frequencies and processing spectrogram results. The paper provides effectiveness analysis of descriptors in two diagnostic cases: the healthy knee group (66 signals) vs the first stage chondromalacia (26 signals) and the third stage chondromalacia (36 signals) vs the osteoarthritis (26 signals). The effectiveness is assessed using the overlap coefficient. The paper indicates the descriptors with the highest diagnostic potential for classification accuracy.