Patent ID: 8170641

Claim:
A method of imaging an extremity of a patient, the method comprising: securing the patient to a table and restraining the patient to the table; locating a first, a second and a third anatomical reference area of the extremity corresponding to an ankle, a knee and a hip; acquiring a first, a second and a third set of image data from the first, second and third anatomical reference areas, respectively while the first, second and third anatomical reference areas are immobilized relative to the table; compiling the first, second and third sets of image data to produce a map having known positional information of the first, second and third anatomical reference areas relative to each other; subsequent to the patient moving relative to the table, acquiring a fourth, a fifth and a sixth set of image data of the first, second and third anatomical reference areas of the extremity, respectively, the fourth, the fifth and the sixth sets of image data having increased image information relative to the first, second and third sets of image data, respectively; correlating locations of the fourth, fifth and sixth sets of image data relative to the first, second and third sets of image data using the map; and determining a characteristic of the extremity based on the correlating.