Taiwan has become an aging society in 1993, and is estimated to become the aged society in 2017. Along with the progress of technology and medical care, the elderly population is escalating rapidly. Age-related progressive skeletal muscle loss is a specific presentation, which is termed “Sarcopenia”. 

The present study is expected to develop a novel automated ultrasound scanner for non-invasive procedure that does not require administering radiation does. Through B-mode ultrasound with FAST scan examinations, elasto-graphy, relevant clinical human experiments and a self-developed algorithm, this instrument will provide medical imaging and quantitative physiological indicators, namely muscle mass and Sarcopenia indices. The study will include long-term group follow-up and a self-tracking survey to investigate muscle function decline, through related clinical diagnostics. The integration of automation hardware and software will provide a valuable opportunity for cooperation between academia and industry. Such results will be quick and easy to interpret for physician and medical laboratory scientist. Finally, this study hopes to establish pioneered of about Sarcopenia database systems to provide information and analysis in Taiwan for academia, the medical profession and industry. 

 The achievements implementation of this project are described as follows: 

1. The automated ultrasonic scanning prototype system is fulfillment.  

2. The automated ultrasonic scanning system has officially entered the SGS for IEC60601-1 safety testing and IEC60601-1-2 electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing.  

3. The actual quadriceps femoris muscle image is acquired by using this automated ultrasonic scanning system and the image stitching is performed. 

 4. The preliminary comparison experiments of MRI and ultrasound are achievements.