BCN MedTech opens the MoCA Lab (Motion Capture and Analysis Lab). This lab uses a marker-based optical tracking technology and has been established at UPF by the Biomechanics and Mechanobiology area of BCN MedTech. The system has been provided and installed by the company BTS (http://www.btsbioengineering.com/), and is currently managed by Simone Tassani, senior researcher at BCN MedTech. 

The MoCA Lab has been funded under the frame of the collaborative project HOLOA (DPI2016-80283-C2-1-R) entitled “Clinical and virtual examination of patients for holistic and objective description of the osteoarthritis progression mechanisms”, led by Jerome Noailly and Miguel Angel Gonzalez Ballester, both PIs of BCN MedTech, and by Laura Tío, Jordi Monfort and Joan Carles Monllau García, at the Hospital del Mar Institute for Medical Research (IMIM), Barcelona. It is equipped with a system of eight infrared cameras with 1.5 MP resolution at 250 fps, and has the capacity to detect maker displacements inferior to 0.1 mm in an acquisition volume of 4x4x3 m3. The motion capture system is synchronised with video cameras and two force plates, for integrated biomechanical analyses of human body motions. 

While this new infrastructure paves the way for a wealth of new collaborations and research opportunities at BCN-MedTech, the MoCA Lab will be primary exploited in the HOLOA project for the functional exploration of patients with knee osteoarthritis patients in collaboration with the Hospital del Mar. This exploration will support the design a predictive and exploratory model that aims to rationally relate to each other different key factors in Osteoarthritis: pain, patient function, knee morphology, cartilaginous tissue condition and inflammation. The ultimate goal of this model is to achieve a better rationalisation of knee arthroplasty, in the management of knee osteoarthritis patient.