Three-dimensional lordosimeter. A device for the nonradiographic assessment of spinal configuration

A technique is presented for the nonradiographic assessment of spinal configuration. Its use in the assessment of scoliotic curvatures is discussed in the light of existing radiographic and nonradiographic techniques. The reproducibility of point-encoding measurements relative to a fixed standard is shown to be 98.8 percent. The correlation of pointencoded spinal angles with similar data taken from x-rays is significant at p less than 0.0005. The average standard deviation in the measurement of spinal angles of 10 successive trials on five test subjects is 3.55 degrees +/- 1.95 degrees.