Patent ID: 8915866

Claim:
A system for detecting indicators of soft tissue wear of a joint, comprising: an implantable sensor comprising: a sensing element adapted for implantation into a portion of a bone adjacent the joint, the sensing element having an external surface configured to maintain the sensing element in a fixed position within the bone, the sensing element configured to detect an acoustic signal indicative of a characteristic of the soft tissue of the joint; and a telemetry circuit in communication with the sensing element configured to transmit a data set representative of the detected acoustic signal outside of the bone, wherein at least a portion of the telemetry circuit includes a passive RFID tag so as to reduce the power requirements of the telemetry circuit; and an implantable accelerometer configured to detect a vibration signal indicative of a characteristic of the soft tissue of the joint, including an external surface configured to maintain the accelerometer in a fixed position within the bone and a telemetry circuit adapted for transmitting a data set representative of the detected vibration signal outside of the bone; and an external receiver in communication with the implantable sensor and the implantable accelerometer, the external receiver configured to receive the data sets representative of the acoustic signal and vibration signal and further configured to analyze the data sets to determine changes in the soft tissue; wherein the accelerometer is one of a multi-axis accelerometer or a plurality of single-axis accelerometers to produce vectored data to differentiate between locations and types of soft tissue degradation, and wherein the at least one of the implantable sensing element and the implantable accelerometer are configured as a reference marker detectable by an image guided surgery system.