Tehnički Vjesnik (Jan 2017)

A fuzzy expert system for diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal disorders in wrist

  • Ameneh Khadivar,
  • Fatemeh Mohammadi Amiri

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 24, no. Supplement 1
pp. 147 – 155

Abstract

Read online

Medical expert system is an application which can effectively contribute to decisions on diagnosis and treatment of diseases. A major part of the knowledge related to diagnosis of symptoms and treatment of illnesses is experimental. The problem is that how this knowledge can be extracted and made available to others.The purpose of this study is to design an expert system for diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal disorders in wrist in fuzzy environment.The knowledge is achieved from 15 elites in the field of musculoskeletal disorders. For data gathering related to symptoms of the disorders, a fuzzy Delphi method is used. A Delphi method is also used for gathering data related to treatments. Finally, a fuzzy expert system is developed for diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal disorders in wrist using MATLAB software. The designed system is able to diagnose seven disorders of the wrist. The input to the system is the magnitude of symptoms and the output is the scores given by the system to disorders; finally, the disorder with the highest score is displayed as the systemic diagnosis for which treatments are suggested.The systemic diagnosis is compared to elite diagnosis using statistical analysis conducted by SPSS software. Results show a significant correlation between two variables. By comparing the variables, it is found that 86,7 % of the systemic diagnoses were similar to elite diagnoses. In the absence of elites, diagnosis and treatment can be performed to a relatively reliable level. As results of current research, medical expert systems can be used as a scientific source by medical students. It can also help users as an auxiliary diagnostic system to diagnose and treat diseases.

Keywords