Quantitative Movement Testing: Measuring Patient Movements from a Single Smartphone Video

2026-06-01

AI Summary

Chronic pain often leads to diminished functional capacity, yet objective and convenient methods for quantifying patients’ motor function in real-world settings remain scarce. This study proposes a computer vision approach leveraging monocular smartphone videos and deep learning–driven 3D human pose estimation to remotely extract clinically relevant kinematic biomarkers in home environments without specialized equipment. Through systematic bias correction and individualized leave-one-subject-out calibration, the method demonstrates high agreement with gold-standard optical motion capture in laboratory validation (r > 0.85) and exhibits excellent test–retest reliability (r > 0.86) as well as significant sensitivity to group differences in patients with fibromyalgia and sciatica. This work represents the first demonstration of high-precision, scalable 3D motor function assessment in unsupervised home settings.

Abstract

Chronic pain diminishes quality of life by decreasing functional ability, yet objectively measuring this functional impact remains challenging in real-world settings. While optical motion capture provides high precision for assessing altered movement quality, it is costly and restricted to laboratory environments. We aimed to develop and validate Quantitative Movement Testing (QMT), a computer vision pipeline extracting 3D kinematic biomarkers from standard monocular smartphone video, balancing clinical accessibility with biomechanical accuracy. We validated the QMT pipeline, utilising deep learning-based 3D pose-estimation, against gold-standard optical motion capture in healthy controls (N=13). Following leave-one-subject-out calibration to correct systematic bias, we deployed QMT in two prospective clinical cohorts to assess real-world utility: a pre- and post-intervention trial for fibromyalgia patients, and a 30-day longitudinal at-home monitoring study of chronic sciatica patients and healthy controls. In laboratory validation, QMT extracted clinical kinematic metrics with high agreement to optical motion capture, yielding strong correlations (r > 0.85) and low mean absolute errors. QMT demonstrated high test-retest reliability (r > 0.86) in fibromyalgia patients and successfully tracked day-to-day movement fluctuations in chronic sciatica. While real-world home settings introduced higher measurement variance than lab settings, QMT found group-level differences between healthy controls and sciatica patients based entirely on remote recordings. Monocular 3D pose estimation offers a scalable alternative to traditional assessments. QMT provides an objective, accessible biomarker for tracking disease progression and treatment response in clinical trials, though further research is needed to optimise reliability in home environments.

Problem

• chronic pain
• functional assessment
• movement quantification
• real-world monitoring
• biomechanical biomarkers

Innovation

• monocular 3D pose estimation
• quantitative movement testing
• computer vision
• kinematic biomarkers
• remote monitoring