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Three-Dimensional Ultrasound Imaging For Characterization Of Synovitis In First Carpometacarpal Osteoarthritis, Carla Du Toit

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

First carpometacarpal osteoarthritis is one of the most common forms of OA and is a significant source of pain and disability for patients. Discrepancies between traditional imaging modalities and patient reported outcomes have led galvanized researchers to developing objective point of care based imaging tools for assessing OA progression and treatment response. This thesis aims to describe the development and validation of a semi-submerged mechanical three-dimensional ultrasound device against magnetic resonance imaging. The validation of the 3D US device was conducted on a series of imaging phantoms, as well as ten CMC1 OA patients. Two-raters manually segmented areas of synovial …

Assessment Of Intrinsic Hand Neuromuscular Physiology, Philemon Tsang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Alterations to the peripheral nervous system and neuromuscular physiology may impact hand function in a typical or clinical population, such as individuals with ulnar neuropathy. The mechanisms that influence these positive and negative changes are still not well understood. The three studies within my thesis aim to validate the reliability of decomposition-based quantitative electromyography (DQEMG) measurements and explore the changes in intrinsic hand neuromuscular physiology in a typical aging population and individuals recovering from a surgical intervention for severe ulnar neuropathy.

The purpose of the first study was to determine the test-retest reliability of near-fibre (NF) jiggle, a measure of …

Feasibility Of Using Arterial Spin Labeling For Detecting Longitudinal Changes In Cerebral Blood Flow, Tracy Ssali

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The ability of the perfusion MRI technique, arterial spin labeling (ASL), to quantify cerebral blood flow (CBF) makes it attractive for longitudinal studies of changes in brain function, such as those related to chronic pain. However, ASL's poor spatial resolution makes image alignment between sessions difficult, leading to increased variance and greater Type-I errors. In addition, variability due to differences in basal blood flow between sessions and confounding effects such as the arterial transit time (ATT) have the potential to reduce reproducibility over time. The focus of this thesis is to investigate the ability of ASL to detect long-term changes …