Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health (NICHD)
Project Description:The goal of this project is to investigate how impaired muscle force production limits walking speed in hemiparetic patients, with the goal to design effective rehabilitation interventions.
Collaborators: Dr. Steve Kautz at the University of Florida and Malcom Randall VA Medical Center; Dr. Felix Zajac at Stanford University.
Development of a SimTK-based framework hemiparetic walking assessment
Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health (NINDS)
Project Description:The primary goal of this project is to collaborate with the Simbios NIH Center for Biomedical Computation to i) establish a theoretical framework for predicting and quantifying the dominant underlying motor impairments from spatiotemporal characteristics of post-stroke hemiparetic walking; and ii) leverage our existing research program on hemiparetic gait to provide an effective driving biological problem to test and enhance the computational algorithms being developed at the center.
Collaborators: Dr. Steve Kautz, University of Florida and the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center; Dr. Felix Zajac at Stanford University.
Wheelchair propulsion technique
Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health (NICHD)Funding Agency: CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF)
Project Description: The goal of this project is to investigate the neuromotor adaptations used by successful transtibial amputees and the interactions with limb-loading and prosthetic design characteristics. The project goal is to understand these interactions and design and manufacture prosthetic ankle-foot components to reduce the debilitating limb loading experienced by transtibial amputees.
Collaborators: Gordon Bosker and Gail Walden at the Andrew J. Gitter Research Center South Texas VA Medical Center.
Biomechanical response of prosthetic feet in transtibial amputees
Funding Agency: The Veterans Affairs (VA)
Project Description: The goal of this project is to investigate the influence of design characteristics of prosthetic feet on gait performance of transtibial amputees. This study will provide important empirical data on which to evaluate our theoretical modeling and simulation studies, with the goal to identify the appropriate prosthetic characteristics for a given amputee and provide objective criteria for the prescription and use of prosthetic devices.
Collaborators: Gordon Bosker and Gail Walden at the Andrew J. Gitter Research Center South Texas VA Medical Center.
Funding Agency: The Veterans Affairs (VA)
Project Description:The purpose of this research is to determine if mechanically-induced stochastic resonance, applied to the residual limb of a diabetic lower limb amputee or the plantar surface of their intact foot, can enhance peripheral sensation sufficiently to result in improved postural stability and gait.
Collaborators: Dr. Glenn Klute at the
VA RR&D Center for Limb Loss Prevention & Prosthetic Engineering, Seattle, WA; Gordon Bosker, Gail Walden and Jim Schroeder at the Andrew J. Gitter Research Center South Texas VA Medical Center.
Passive dynamic ankle-foot orthoses for enhanced function and injury prevention
Project Description: The goal of this project is to design and optimize orthotic devices that serve to compensate for a variety of injuries, disorders and diseases that affect muscle and nerve function. We are developing rapid prototyping techniques to design and manufacture subject-specific orthoses that will be clinically evaluated.
Collaborators: Dr. Steve Kautz, University of Florida and the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center.
