Motion tracking on elbow tissue from ultrasonic image sequence for patients with lateral epicondylitis.

In this study, Kinesio Tape(R) is used in patients with lateral epicondylitis. The ultrasonic image sequences of elbow are recorded dynamically, and then motion tracking is applied to assist in understanding the effect of the therapy. Motion tracking, based on optical flow method, is used to track certain landmark on the ultrasound image, which is very ambiguous, for estimating the motion of muscle. Hierarchical block tracking technique is proposed to perform this task. The motions with and without Kinesio Taping are compared and can be used as quantitative indicators for the treatment. The experimental results show that Kinesio Taping makes the motion of muscle on the ultrasonic images enlarge. It means that the performance of muscle motion gets improve.