Both anatomical landmark compensation methods (with skin marker displacement and joint angle) showed good reliability in real lower extremity motions. In the study, differences between two marker clusters for the hip and knee kinematic variables (all but hip antero-posterior motion) were significantly reduced by 30–60% by anatomical landmark compensation with skin marker displacement compared to that without compensation. Reduction of the differences by anatomical landmark compensation with joint angle ranged from 10 to 60%.
Of the two anatomical landmark compensation methods, the one using skin marker displacement showed slightly better reliability in analyzing lower extremity motions. Results showed that the differences of five kinematic variables (hip flexion/extension, ankle flexion/extension, knee antero-posterior, knee longitudinal, and ankle antero-posterior motion) were significantly reduced by compensation with skin marker displacement by 30–40% more than joint angle compensation regardless of the target motion. The former method also significantly reduced the differences of knee flexion/extension and ankle internal/external rotation in sitting and stepping than the latter method by 25–30%. Compensation with joint angle was 35–50% more reliable than with skin marker displacement for only one variable (hip medio-lateral motion) in some target motions.
Compensation with joint angle had some limitations in analyzing the kinematics of the ankle joint. While compensation with joint angle was as good as with skin marker displacement in analyzing hip and knee joint motions, it had larger mean differences than without compensation for some variables of the ankle joint. This seems to be because of the relatively large inaccuracy of the joint angle used in anatomical landmark compensation. Without compensation, the mean difference of knee flexion/extension was as large (4.0°) as that of hip flexion/extension (3.8°); the joint angle estimated without compensation was used to estimate anatomical landmark positions in compensation with joint angle. In contrast, anatomical landmark displacements of the shank (5–20

mm) were small relative to those of the thigh (15–40 mm). Therefore, the unreliable knee joint angle seems to have a large effect on the anatomical landmark position estimation of the shank relative to the thigh.
The compensation with skin marker displacement and with joint angle still had some residual differences. Even in a stationary posture, mean differences between two sets of kinematic variables estimated using two marker clusters, which represent the instrumental errors in this study, were 0.1–3° and 1–16

mm for angular and linear motions, respectively. During target motions, mean differences for compensation with skin marker displacement and compensation with joint angle were 1–5° and 5–30

mm for angular and linear motions, respectively.
This study had a limitation that it only evaluated the reliability of compensation methods, but not accuracy. To compute the accuracy of the compensation methods, tracking the position of underlying bones is necessary, and errors in kinematic variables should be compared to validate the compensation methods. But this study could not do it due to practical reasons, thus further study will be needed to validate the methods.
Moreover, the relationship between the displacement of the anatomical landmarks and those of skin markers reflected STA partially. STA in the thigh can occurr with hip and knee joint motions and that in the shank with knee and ankle joint motions. However, this study obtained the relationship in the thigh from only hip joint motions and those in the shank from only knee joint motions. Therefore, the relationship would not consider the whole STA of real lower extremity motions in which both the proximal and distal joints move together. A further study will be necessary to analyze and use the relationship using additional motions such as ankle joint motion with knee fixed and knee joint motion with hip fixed.
This study applied the compensation methods in some lower extremity motions and compared their reliability. Compensation with skin marker displacement was more reliably than with joint angle, although both methods were superior to without compensation. For hip and knee motions, both anatomical landmark compensation methods reduced differences between marker clusters by half in the three motions than without compensation. Compensation with joint angle had some weaknesses in analyzing ankle motion, whereas compensation with skin marker displacement consistently showed less difference between marker clusters than without compensation.