Alternative Representation of the Shoulder Orientation Based on the Tilt-and-Torsion Angles

Abstract

The International Society of Biomechanics (ISB) has proposed standardized recommendations for recording human joint motion. The Euler angles—the orientation representation currently proposed by the ISB—have two drawbacks, namely, the issue of singularities (gimbal lock) and the difficulty to obtain clinical and interpretable orientation representation for compound movements. The orientation representation of the shoulder joint with the Euler angles is particularly challenging due to its broad range of motion. This paper proposes and evaluates an alternative orientation representation for shoulder movement based on the tilt-and-torsion representation, a method that aims at providing a more clinically interpretable solution for describing joint movements compared to the standard Euler angles. Three studies were performed to compare the different orientation representation methods. The first two studies consist in simulations of arm elevation in different planes. The third study is an experiment using inertial-measurement-units with one test subject performing shoulder elevation movements in different planes. The tilt-and-torsion representation is then compared with different Euler angle conventions. The results show that Euler angles are biased or clinically uninterpretable for compound movements. Conversely, tilt-and-torsion representation does not suffer from these limitations. Although not extensive, the experiments suggest that the tilt-and-torsion representation has the potential to better represent human movements and provide more clinically interpretable results than the Euler angles.