Patent ID: 7232416

Claim:
A method for determining the anatomic condition of components of the body of a human or of an animal having joints, comprising: utilizing an auxiliary device selected from the group consisting of a brace, an orthosis, and an exercise machine to cause reproducible passive movements or reproducible active movements of at least one joint to produce a sound signal in a selected component of the body associated with said at least one joint; recording said sound signal at a point adjacent to the selected component of the body; evaluating said sound signal, by a spectral analysis of frequencies and amplitudes contained in said sound signal; making a comparison of the outcome of said spectral analysis with a plurality of stored reference patterns for corresponding spectral analyses for the diagnosis of the anatomic condition; and indicating the result of a diagnosis as a screen display in the form of an animation in which the illustrated joint executes movements which correspond to those of said reproducible movements of said at least one joint, with these movements being indicated either synchronously or asynchronously to the actual movement of said at least one joint, said at least one joint being schematically illustrated on the screen display and the diagnosis being indicated visually by highlighting of damaged positions on said animation.