Engineering Commons^™

Developing And Testing Of An Upper Limb Exoskeleton For Stroke Patients, Drew Dudley, David Salazar

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Objective: The main objective of this study was to determine functional and neuromuscular outcomes of stroke patients using their non-preferred hand with and without a 3D printed passive exoskeleton compared to controls using their non-preferred hand with and without the passive exoskeleton. Methods: Adults at least six months post stroke (Stroke, n = 5) and age- and sex- matched healthy controls (Control, n = 5) performed nine trials of a gross motor task while having their brain activity measured. The Fugl-Meyer and “Box and Block” test was used to measure the gross dexterity of the subjects with and without the …

Determining The Relationship Between Walking Activity And Inter-Day Patterns In Stroke Survivors, Sydney Andreasen

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Populations that have suffered from stroke are generally less active than people of otherwise similar demographics and are more susceptible to further health problems, such as another stroke. This study seeks to assess the validity of a treatment that encourages stroke survivors to walk more steps each day, in order to improve their active abilities and become less idle by establishing motivation for activity and therefore, also establishing patterns in the distribution of that activity throughout a stroke survivor’s day. 172 subjects (6 months post-stroke) have participated in a step activity monitoring program to record steps taken using wearable pedometers. …

Intensity And Pattern Of Daily Physical Activity Of Claudicating Patients, Cody Anderson

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

file:///C:/Users/codya/Desktop/Cody%20et%20al_2019_Human%20Movement%20Variability%20Conference.pdf

Efficacy Of Assistive Devices Produced With Additive Manufacturing, James Pierce

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Despite the frequency of musculoskeletal injuries such as sprains, broken bones and torn ligaments¹, treatment options are often costly, time-consuming and ill-fitted.^2,3 Additive manufacturing (“3D-printing) allows for the production of highly-customized and inexpensive assistive devices⁴, which suggests potential efficacy in the prescription of splints and casts for musculoskeletal injury.³ In the present study, a parametric, customizable splint/cast was created using a computer-aided design (CAD) package (Fusion 360, Autodesk, San Rafael, CA, USA) and produced with low-cost, desktop 3D printing (Ultimaker 2+ Extended, Ultimaker, Geldermalsen, Netherlands). Fitting of the devices was performed on five healthy …

Gait Alterations After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury And Implications For Return-To-Play Testing, Lindsey Remski

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Introduction: Reoccurring injury to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is a major problem for individuals who undergo ACL reconstructive surgery despite them meeting current requirements for return-to-play. Previous studies have found alterations in gait kinetics and kinematics of ACL deficient and ACL reconstruction patients. It is unknown if gait parameters, such as peak joint angles and moments, provide different information about patient function from what is provided by return-to-play outcomes. Purpose: To assess the relationships between peak joint angles, peak joint moments, and return-to-play outcomes for individuals with ACL injury. Methods: 6 subjects (3 ACL reconstruction, 3 ACL deficient) performed …

Visual Contributions To Balance Control During Gait, Kyle Brozek

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

We propose to isolate the contributions of continuous OF to the orthogonal relationship between balance and gait control during treadmill walking using a series of conditions. Manipulating the direction of OF using a CAREN (Motek Medical, Amsterdam, Netherlands) virtual reality treadmill environment will isolate these visual contributions in human subjects as they walk. We plan to tease out the effect of OF direction on the relationship between gait and balance control by having healthy young adults perform a series of treadmill walking trials while immersed in a VR environment. This will be done by manipulating the direction of walking and …

Effects Of A Passive Dynamic Lower-Leg Exoskeleton During Walking, Blake Beier

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The ankle joint is one of the most important joints during walking. If the muscles surrounding the ankle are weak, there are reductions in the ability to generate appropriate torques and powers at the ankle. This leads to slower self-selected walking speeds, which correlate with poor physical functioning, more disabilities, increased hospitalization visits and costs, and even mortality. Because of this, many orthotic and exoskeletal devices have been created to restore proper ankle function by promoting ankle plantar flexion. Utilizing 3D printing and an extension spring, we created an easily accessible, reproducible, and modifiable exoskeleton that has the potential to …

Gait Alterations In Peripheral Arterial Disease Are Not Worsened By The Presence Of Diabetes, Hafizur Rahman

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a vascular disease where atherosclerotic blockages restrict blood flow to muscles in the lower extremities. Diabetes is a common co-morbid condition in PAD and has been shown to increase the risk of lower extremity amputation compared to PAD without diabetes. Although there is a clear pathological relationship between diabetes and PAD, the gait mechanics involved remain indistinct. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine whether the presence of diabetes in addition to PAD results in greater functional impairment during ambulation. Twenty-three subjects with PAD and twelve controls consented to participate in the research. …

Estimating Variations In Metabolic Cost Within The Stride Cycle During Level And Uphill Walking, Arash Mohammadzadeh Gonabadi

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Indirect calorimetry provides the average cost of a stride cycle and prevents from identifying which part of the gait cycle causes increased metabolic cost in patients, however, recent simulation methods allow estimating the time profile of metabolic cost within the stride cycle. In this study, we compare the estimations of the time profile of the metabolic cost of two simulation methods for level and uphill walking. We used kinematic, kinetic and electromyography data from level and uphill walking (one participant) to estimate the time profiles of metabolic cost using the muscle-level metabolic model of Umberger using electromyography and kinematic data …

Collision Work Performed By Patients With Peripheral Artery Disease, Alex Dzewaltowski, Sara A. Myers, Jason M. Johanning, Iraklis I. Pipinos

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The goal of this study was to assess the differences in collision work performed by healthy, aged-matched controls compared to patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) to provide foundations for an eventual exoskeleton design. Collision work is energy dissipated into the surrounding environment from impact, in this study’s case, upon heel strike. When designing an exoskeleton for patients with PAD, harvesting energy lost to collision work could be a valuable mechanism to improve walking performance. Devices designed to utilize the normally dissipated energy for assisting propulsion to improve walking performance are under-explored [1, 2]. The purpose of this study was …

Bimanual Coordination Assessment Using Prosthetic Simulators, Chris Copeland

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

There were a total of 1.6 million people living with loss of a limb in 2005. This number is projected to double to 3.6 million by 2050 [1]. While prosthetics aim to enhance the function of these individuals, it is estimated that 45% of pediatric prosthetic users reject their prosthesis [2]. The literature which describes the motor control mechanisms of prosthetic use is sparse and often low-powered due to inadequate number of subjects. However, prosthetic simulators may be a solution to chronically low-powered prosthetic studies by serving as functional homologues. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the efficacy …

The Energy Paradox Of The Ankle-Foot Complex During Human Walking, Nikolaos Papachatzis, Kota Takahashi

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Flexor hallucis longus (FHL) is a multiarticular muscle that possesses the potential to alter foot’s functional and mechanical behavior, since it performs multiple significant functions during walking (e.g supports the medial longitudinal arch of the foot).The purpose of this study was to determine if the functional changes of the FHL are associated with the foot’s adaptations to the mechanical demands of walking. Backward walking is an experimental method capable of altering how the forces propagate underneath the foot and disrupting the mechanical function of the FHL muscle. We hypothesized that: (1) the muscle activity of the FHL will increase during …

Mobility-Based Models For Advancing Diagnostic/Predictive Healthcare, Elham Rastegari

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Functional ability has been always considered as one of the important determining factors of individuals’ health and quality of life. Traditional movement analysis systems require expensive facilities and frequent visits for patients to specialized laboratories. Portability and affordability of wearable sensors along with their improved accuracy and capability of monitoring movement during daily activities make them a potential alternative for analyzing mobility patterns for clinical and health assessment purposes. Wearable-based movement data, when combined with other relevant clinical or laboratory data, could enhance evidence-based healthcare and data-driven Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS). Utilizing the data from wearable devices, many researchers …

Simulation Of Joint Contact Forces In Total Knee Arthroplasty Patients Using Opensim, Benjamin Frazier

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The occurrence of Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) is projected to increase markedly in the coming decade, and a better method of rehabilitating TKA patients is becoming necessary. Rehabilitation of these patients is of utmost importance such that patients are capable of using the limb effectively. Focus towards improving the rehabilitation of patients that have undergone TKA operations requires a metric for comparison of performance between control groups and experimental groups. Joint contact forces (JCF) calculated via simulation in OpenSim using Motion Capture and Force Plate data provide effective means comparing these groups. Subjects are outfitted with a marker set and …

The Time Of Slip Onset During Stance Influences The Characteristics Of The Unconstrained Perturbation, Corbin Rasmussen, Nathaniel Hunt

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Falls pose a significant health hazard, resulting in devastating injuries like broken wrists, fractured hips, and traumatic brain injuries that exceed $50 billion in U.S. medical costs. To address these risks, biomechanists have subjected individuals to simulated slips in order to study the factors that lead to falls. These studies have focused on slips that happen immediately after heel-strike and are unnaturally restricted by the methods used to cause the slip. Therefore, the effects of unconstrained slips that occur throughout stance phase are unknown. To address this knowledge gap, we examined the relationship between the timing of slip onset and …

A Comparative Study For Feature Selection Algorithms To Analyze Gait Patterns For Health Purposes, Donovan Orn

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

A Comparative Study for Feature Selection Algorithms to Analyze Gait Patterns for Healthcare Purposes

Donovan Orn

Abstract

With the explosive use of wearable devices, there is an urgent need to find ways to utilize the data collected by such devices. In many cases, wearable devices contain accelerometers that collected different types of data. It is not always clear which data points can be used to extract information that can be used to provide useful knowledge about the health of the individuals. In this study, we proposed to research, implement, and comparing various feature selection techniques used for analyzing on gait …