The patient couch serves for carrying out radiological medical imaging examinations by X-ray, tomography, nuclear magnetic resonance and other imaging methods. The person rests thereon in lying position for the creation of tomographic and other images. The patient couch is equipped with a capturing device, for measuring the patient's body or certain sites of the patient's body by optical, laser-optical, mechanical or electromechanical methods and/or devices. The couch has footrests for positioning the soles of the feet as when standing on vertical supporting faces with natural spreading of the feet, as well as portions for capturing at least the positions of the knee joints, the hip joint, the pelvic bone, the shoulders and the head. Further, the couch is equipped with pressure sensors for measuring the local supported weights of the various supported body sites, for reproducibly capturing the position of the skeleton with regard to its center axis as well as any rotations of shoulder and/or hip.