Hearing snap, crackle, pop may help heal your knee

Acoustic engineering transcribes crackling knee sounds into moving graph

You’ve injured your knee. A doctor straps a listening device to it, and the noises you hear coming out of it are cringe-worthy. “Crackle! Krglkrglkrgl! Snap!”

Your knee isn’t breaking; it’s only bending, and in the future, those sounds could help doctors determine whether the convalescing joint is healthy yet, or if it needs more therapy.

Research engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are developing a knee band with microphones and vibration sensors to listen to and measure the sounds inside the joint.

It could lead to a future device to help orthopedic specialists assess damage after an injury and track the progress of recovery.

http://www.news.gatech.edu/2016/05/23/hearing-snap-crackle-pop-may-help-heal-your-knee