Various health professions attempt to improve musculoskeletal status by altering tissue stiffness (TS). TS is assessed typically by palpation and less frequently by instrumentation. The instrument employed most commonly is the tissue compliance meter or TCM.

When tested, the TCM's Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC), a reliability measure, was 0.005 while its deformation error was 1.28±0.57mm/49.1N. An new instrument was developed (tissue stiffness meter or TSM) to assess TS. The TSM's ICC was 0.99 while its deformation error was 0.008±0.01mm/30N. It was concluded that the TSM was accurate and reliable compared to the TCM.

Tire TSM was tested in vivo and it was concluded that it could detect within subject TS differences in the human lumbar spine at rest, compared to conditions of isometric contraction.

While future data derived from the TSM may be useful, direct clinical use of this TSM prototype is limited because of its size.