Deep Learning Approaches for Detecting and Predicting Knee Osteoarthritis Severity

Knee osteoarthritis stands as one of the most prevalent musculoskeletal ailments globally. Its initial signs include joint stiffness, discomfort, and limitations in functionality, marking it as a significant joint disorder. Older adults are more likely to have arthritis, and it normally gets worse with age. If there are no early, effective therapies used, it can lead to impairment in older people. Therapy must be started as soon as possible; otherwise, a full knee replacement may be necessary. The very subjective nature of the standard procedures creates a barrier to early illness progression detection. This study involves in-depth exploration and examination of the application of deep learning techniques for knee osteoarthritis detection and severity prediction. In this work EfficientNet-B6 was chosen for its superior performance in balancing accuracy, speed, and resource efficiency. Unlike models such as MobileNet or ResNet, X-ray images are used to train the model to predict the severity of knee osteoarthritis. The model classifies the data with an accuracy of 87%. A website for OA prediction is developed, the user needs to drag and drop an X-ray image in the dialog box given. The predicted output along with the severity will be shown within a few seconds. This website is very easy to use.