Estimation of the orthosis-limb contact pressure through thermal imaging

Prolonged skin contact with any object can be detrimental to skin integrity. This issue is particularly relevant in rehabilitative medicine, where localized pressure between the skin and the orthosis may lead to pressure ulcers. This paper describes a study aimed to evaluate the possibility of deriving the human body-orthosis contact pressure starting from a thermal image. The dependence between the hand-orthosis contact pressure and the corresponding thermal image is modeled by using a lumped parameter model and finite element analyses. The agreement between the theoretical predictions and the measured thermal maps has been verified in laboratory conditions.