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Engineering

Politecnico di Milano – Laboratorio Luigi Divieti

Where motion analysis and BTS was born in 1986

Politecnico di Milano – Laboratorio Luigi Divieti
Project summary
Country:
Italy
Type of structure:
University
Field:
Engineering
BTS used technologies::
SMART, DX FREEEMG, G-WALK, P-WALK

The “Luigi Divieti” Posture and Movement Analysis Laboratory is in the Electronics Department, Information and Bioengineering of the Politecnico di Milano. Instruments and methodologies are mainly oriented to the study of posture and human movement, but they can be easily used for measurements and evaluations of any artificial life or living system movement. The measurement systems and methodologies adopted in the laboratory are applied, with great ease and flexibility, to various fields such as clinical-rehabilitation, sports, motion capture, ergonomics studies.

Provided services

The laboratory’s activity is divided into:

  • – Research / Clinical Research: this activity is mainly focused on the definition and implementation of experimental set-ups to quantify specific movements, the determination of a normality reference, the identification and calculation of specific and synthetic parameters for clinical applications. In this way we provide the clinic with tools that allow for quantifying the degree of functional limitation, improving the decision-making process for the best rehabilitation treatment and quantifying the effects of a treatment over time in different pathological conditions (Cerebral Palsy, Down syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, eating disorders, stroke, hemiplegia, ataxia and other diseases)
  • – Teaching: various courses of the bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering, both first level and master’s, and of the Doctoral School in Bioengineering are held at the “Luigi Divieti” Laboratory. We combine lectures with practical sessions and every year we collect several final works carried out at the Laboratory.
  • – Training /consultancy: support is provided to movement analysis laboratories and courses are organized for laboratory technicians and companies operating in this field.
  • – Clinic Service: it is dedicated to clinical institutes that do not have a movement analysis laboratory but need to evaluate their patients using quantitative movement analyses. In this case, the assessments are carried out at the “Luigi Divieti” Laboratory in the face of official conventions / agreements.

Although the Laboratory activity is mainly focused on the application of movement analysis in the clinical setting, recently the activities have been expanded including ergonomic studies and the evaluation of sports gestures. Since 2015 the Laboratory has been part of the e4Sport inter-departmental laboratory which was born from an interdisciplinary project of the Politecnico di Milano, as a catalyst of different engineering and design skills available to sport. The e4Sport Lab represents a privileged interlocutor and reference point for the players who operate in sports at different levels: athletes (amateurs and professionals), teams and federations as well as interested in the contribution that Engineering and Design can give to understand and improve athletic performance in every aspect that characterizes the single sport. Thanks to its multidisciplinary team, e4Sport has state-of-the-art indoor and outdoor instrumentation and sophisticated simulation and data analysis systems capable of analyzing the request, designing the protocol, and properly answering to questions concerning each sport and every kind of athlete (amateur, professional, with disabilities).

“The BTS technology used in the laboratory enables the accurate acquisition and analysis of key posture and movement information, proving to be extremely versatile. The measurement systems and methodologies adopted are applied, with great ease and flexibility, to different fields – in clinical rehabilitation, sports, motion capture and ergonomic studies of living or artificial systems.”

Manuela Galli , Associate Professor, Laboratory manager, Politecnico di Milano - Italy
Why BTS

The choice of equipping the “Luigi Divieti” Laboratory with BTS technologies has above all “historical” reasons since, at the Politecnico di Milano, innovative methodologies and technologies for the movement analysis have been developed, including the gait vector diagrams and the Elite system for 3D movement analysis.
Furthermore, the BTS technology coming with the laboratory allows for accurately acquiring and analyzing the main information on posture and movement of clinical interest, revealing versatility even for applications in the ergonomic and sports fields. A certainly positive element is that the company is Italian, facilitating and speeding up staff contact for technical support.