Advanced assessment of the bone mineral density of a finger using a vibration-based in vivo device and two-stepped cantilever beam model

Abstract

There has been an increase in the number of age-related diseases worldwide. Among these, osteoporosis, which is one of the muscular skeletal diseases, has increased rapidly worldwide. It can be diagnosed and evaluated based on bone mineral density (BMD). There are several BMD diagnosis devices; however, they have a few disadvantages. This study proposes a vibration-based BMD measurement device and advanced evaluation model. To measure the fundamental frequency of a finger, a vibration-based in vivo device was developed, and a two-stepped beam model derived using the Rayleigh energy method was used to calculate the BMD based on the measured natural frequency. Consequently, the BMDs calculated using the two-stepped beam and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) methods were significantly correlated under error of 5 %.