Biomedical Devices and Instrumentation Commons^™

Development Of An Advanced Step Counting Algorithm With Integrated Activity Detection For Free Living Environments, Paige M. Dolan

Master's Theses

Physical activity plays a crucial role in maintaining overall health and reducing the risk of various chronic diseases. Step counting has emerged as a popular method for assessing physical activity levels, given its simplicity and ease of use. However, accurately measuring step counts in free-living environments presents significant challenges, with most activity trackers exhibiting a percent error above 20%. This study aims to address these challenges by creating a machine learning algorithm that leverages activity labels to improve step count accuracy in real-world conditions. Two approaches to balancing data were used: one employed a simpler oversampling technique, while the other …

Thermal Preconditioning Effects On Perforation Propensity Of Transvenous Implantable Cardiac Leads Used For Pacing And Defibrillation, Diane Muff

Master's Theses

Thermal preconditioning to simulate shipping, handling and storage conditions did not affect distal tip stiffness values for permanently implantable cardiac leads used for pacing and defibrillation. Leads that were subjected to extreme temperatures and temperature cycling did not show changes in buckle force values compared with control specimens which were maintained at ambient room conditions. Absolute differences between all measurements were small, generally under 0.05 N and were attributable to measurement variability.

Buckle force values are used to assess the propensity of leads to perforate the heart, a rare but potentially serious complication of implantable pacing and defibrillation systems. Since …

Smart Cushion Device For Elderly Aging In Place, Anna Dion, Nate Colley, Leonardo Bravo

Biomedical Engineering

Our task at hand is to develop a consumer-focused solution for improving elder care to provide additional peace of mind for seniors and caregivers using technology to extend independent living. We intend to create a device that will improve the quality of life of elderly individuals living alone by encouraging periodical movement throughout the day, along with monitoring pressure distribution and alerting when pressure concentration is potentially harmful. It will also alert users to the presence of moisture which can arise from spills or incontinence. The key stakeholders of this project include elderly adults over the age of 65 who …

Bolin Symes Prosthetic, Samuel C. Collins, Rowan Sun, Jake Hacker

Biomedical Engineering

This project’s purpose is to design a comfortable prosthetic for an individual with a Syme’s amputation, which is a below-knee amputation that removes the foot from the leg at the ankle joint. The goal is to minimize the discomfort that is associated with the current prosthetic leg options for the client, Mr. Bolin, who has the Syme’s amputation. This project also seeks to improve mobility, quality of life, and activity levels of the client. The stakeholder for this project is Mr. Bolin. The final prototype performed successfully when worn by the client and passed comfort testing. Furthermore, COMSOL modeling of …

Deep Vein Thrombosis Diagnostic Device, Alisha Mitha, Karina Martel, Ayla Silbahar

Biomedical Engineering

Deep Vein Thrombosis is one of the leading causes of death in hospitals worldwide due its ability to form in patients who are sedentary after receiving care. There is a need for a DVT diagnostic device that can be worn constantly in order to alert medical professionals if a thrombosis is forming, which is the basis of this senior project. The current solutions are time consuming, and look for thrombi after they have fully formed. The goal of this senior project is to design and construct a device to constantly monitor in-hospital patients for early stage DVT and alert hospital …

Liftwalker, Kai A. De La Cruz, Lexie Caterine, Adam Monroe, Jame Whealan

Mechanical Engineering

The LiftWalker’s purpose is to lift users with degenerative diseases from a seated to standing position and support them as they practice the motion of walking as a form of physical therapy. The current LiftWalker is upward of $5,000 so we redesigned the LiftWalker to be more accessible around the world. This meant using affordable and accessible materials and manufacturing processes. To achieve this, we made our design mostly out of bike parts and off-the-shelf components. When it came to the lift system, we found that to maintain a safe and comfortable design it was best to purchase a trailer …

Kinomatic Hip Arthroplasty Pelvic Tilt, Emily Wolfert, Teddy Alberton, Sydney Dresser

Biomedical Engineering

Kinomatic is a startup company that provides custom preoperative surgical plans for orthopedic surgeons. The surgical plans are intended for total hip and knee arthroplasty to provide patient-specific measurements and implant sizing. Surgeons can view the surgical plans as 3D models in virtual reality with an Oculus Quest 2 headset or as a PDF summary. Most patients receive a diagnostic anterior-posterior (AP) x-ray that allows their surgeon to determine if they are eligible for a total hip or knee replacement. After diagnosis, the patient can also choose a Kinomatic surgical plan to provide their surgeon with additional data points before …

2-Channel Eeg Neurofeedback System, Tim Erwin, Donna Nikjou, Sebastian Turkewitz

Electrical Engineering

This work describes the design of an EEG-based neurofeedback system which provides users with real-time feedback on their level of focus or relaxation. By analyzing the spectral content of the brain activity measured via scalp electrodes, focus and relaxation levels can be quantified. Based on these measurements, live feedback in the form of moving bar graphs is provided to users, allowing them to gain awareness of their mental-state and more efficiently learn how to consciously relax or focus. This project covers the design of the system, including amplification and filtering stages, digitization, and signal processing. The system interfaces with a …

Redesign Of Leg Assembly For Remote Walking Training Device To Improve Gait Kinematics, Jacob Anthony

Mechanical Engineering Theses

As modern medicine has improved, the average age of patients has increased. This has cause a growing number of patients to develop disabilities over time due to spinal cord injuries and stroke among other neurological ailments. This has led to an increased interest in developing robotic exoskeletons to help patients with neuromuscular rehabilitation. However, most exoskeletons do not accurately replicate the natural human gait kinematics due to a lack of degrees of freedom at the designed knee joint. In this thesis, the leg assembly for a robotic rehabilitation (RoboREHAB) device is redesigned to improve the gait kinematics and a reinforcement …

The Effects Of Additive Manufacturing On Canine Hind Limb Repairment Surgery, Annabel Keers

Honors Theses

The intention of this project is to explore some of the ways that additive manufacturing is affecting veterinary medicine. I will specifically be delving into canine hind limb repairment surgeries, such as cranial cruciate ligament reconstruction. 3D printed prototypes have been utilized in the human medical field for quite a while, and it has inspired such technology to expand into the world of veterinary medicine. Such emerging research is expected to take-off as the pet market grows in size and level of care for the health of our animals.

I took special interest in this field as I will be …

Variable Design Stent To Prevent Stent Failure In Areas Of High Mobility In Peripheral Artery Disease Patients, Emmie Stevens, Brennan Toepfer, Lexi Graves

Honors Theses

As senior biomedical engineering students at the University of Mississippi, we were tasked with a senior project to find an unmet clinical need in the healthcare industry and design a way to solve it. Our team, consisting of Hannah Dunn, Lexi Graves, Emmie Stevens, and Brennan Toepfer, decided to improve upon current stents to create a stent more suited to treating Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD), especially in high-impact areas, such as the back of the knee joint. Stents placed in the back of the knee have a high level of stent failure due to the high movement of the knee …

Structured Light Radial-View Endoscope Imaging Development For Evaluation Of Human Tissue, Xiyan Li

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

In this thesis, we improved an existing structured light methodology to more accurately estimate tissue optical properties imaged in a single snapshot. The developed approach is a major enhancement of the traditional three-phase spatial frequency domain imaging system: It greatly simplifies the operational procedure while also maintaining high accuracy in optical property measurements .

Leveraging this improved approach, we have developed a low-cost, compact, and radial-view endoscope prototype. This prototype combines affordability with high functionality and a user-friendly design. To assess the performance and reliability of our endoscope, we conducted comprehensive evaluations involving tissue-mimicking phantoms, as well as ex vivo …

Integrating Implantable Bci Devices Within Bci2000 Using A Unified Framework And Toolchain For In-Vivo Research, Dhruva Mehta

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The field of neurotechnology research has a bright and promising future as more devices are created. However, there are still many gaps in the field as the potential for neuromodulation grows. Devices such as the Micro-Leads StimZ system and the Ripple Grapevine/Summit system help bridge that gap by allowing for a broader variety of closed-loop neuromodulation experiments to be implemented thanks to their portability and versatility. Despite these devices being on the market, however, there needs to be a method to collaborate and interact with them across multiple research institutions. BCI2000 helps to address that by creating a standardized working …

Potential Impact Of Proposed Medical Device On Hospital Acquired Anemia, Sam Menzie

Masters Theses

Evacuated tubes are the industry standard for drawing blood and have improved phlebotomist and patient safety as well as paved the way for laboratory automation. Current practices using evacuated tubes do not allow caregivers to control the volume of blood drawn, leading to blood waste in hospital settings. This overdrawing of blood has led to the prevalence of iatrogenic anemia, or hospital acquired anemia (HAA). HAA represents a significant risk to patients, leading to increased adverse conditions, and a higher consumption of hospital resources. This study seeks to model the efficacy of a potential new medical device. The proposed device …

Patterned Magnetic And Plasmonic Nanostructures In Microfluidics For Extracellular Vesicle Screening And Drug Loading, John H. Molinski

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Extracellular vesicles (EVs), once dismissed as shuttles for cellular waste, have emerged as vital nanoscale biomolecules, facilitating intercellular communication through transfer of host-cell specific molecular cargo. Tumor-derived EVs, released by cancer cells, hold potential as diagnostic biomolecules due to their links to cancer cells, abundance within biofluids, and potential for direct extraction and detection. More broadly, EVs from a wide array of cellular origins have been explored as therapeutic carriers, stemming from their innate function as cargo carriers, high biocompatibility, and their ability to evade immune detection. However, harnessing EVs for diagnostic or therapeutic applications necessitates efficient isolation, purification, and …

Manufacturing Silicone In-House For The Creation Of Customized Neurovascular Blood Vessel Mimics, Jacob Wilbert Perisho

Master's Theses

The Tissue Engineering Lab at California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo focuses on creating tissue-engineered Blood Vessel Mimics (BVMs) designed for the preclinical testing of neurovascular devices. These BVMs are composed of silicone models, representing anatomically accurate neurovasculatures, that are sodded with vascular cell types and then cultivated in bioreactors (which maintain physiologic conditions). These silicone models are currently sourced externally from industry partners, so the primary goal of this thesis was to develop the means and methods for the Tissue Engineering Lab to manufacture silicone models in-house.

The first aim of this thesis was to develop and explore …

Real-Time Measurements From Wearable Sensors To Enhance Stability On Uneven Terrain, Sophie Copelin

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The presented thesis is a study of sensation associated with inversion/eversion movement about the anterior/posterior axis. The long-term goal is to create a system that provides feedback to a prosthesis user, so their chances of falling is decreased. This feedback system would use wearable sensors to detect certain angles, so that sensory feedback could be provided. The study aimed to determine if Xsens Movella DOT sensors could be used in a system like this, so the accuracy of the Xsens Movella DOT sensors was assessed and the difference in angles that could be determined by them when compared to that …

Database And Machine Learning Model For Classifying Autism Spectrum Disorder From Smartphone Based Electroretinography, Rory Harris

Honors Scholar Theses

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that negatively affects a patient’s cognitive and communication aptitude and, therefore, can severely impact that patient’s quality of life. Because of this, early diagnosis is paramount. In recent studies, electroretinography (ERG), which is a measure of the retina’s electrical response to a brief flash of light into the eye, has shown promise in detecting ASD. Access to these scans can provide early diagnosis, improving well-being. Current ERG devices are very expensive due to their on board processing capabilities. This paper aims to create an ERG device using a smartphone as the main …

Microwave Imaging Technique For Breast Cancer Detection, Nure Alam Chowdhury

Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer is a global problem, and it is inevitable to detect cancerous cells at early stages. In recent years, microwave imaging technology has been widely applied in biomedical applications for its non-ionizing radiation. In this study, we design a micro-strip patch antenna with an inverted T-type notch in the partial ground to detect tumor cells inside the human breast. The size of the current antenna is small enough (18 mm × 21 mm × 1.6 mm) to distribute around the breast phantom. The operating frequency has been observed from 6–14 GHz with a minimum return loss of −61.18 dB …

Advancements Of A Breast Tissue Marker And Localization System, Azrin Jamison

All Theses

Breast cancer has become the most prominent cancer worldwide in women. Annual mammograms are encouraged for women of high risk to increase early detection allowing for lumpectomies rather than mastectomies to occur. Prior to a lumpectomy, a biopsy must be taken to determine if the tissue is cancerous, and a breast cancer biopsy marker (BBM) is left in the region of possible cancerous tissue. Wire localization has been the gold standard for localizing these BBMs. However, due to the reported patient discomfort and logistical inefficiencies faced by healthcare providers (HCP), non-wire localization solutions have been recently developed. This study aims …