Assessment of varus thrust using inertial measurement units.

Background: Varus thrust is common in those with knee osteoarthritis. Varus thrust is traditionally identified with visual analysis or motion capture, methods that are either dichotomous or limited to the laboratory setting. Inertial measurement unit data has been found to correlate with motion capture measures of varus thrust in those with severe knee osteoarthritis, allowing for a quantitative and accessible way of measuring varus thrust.

Increased Auditory Dual Task Cost During Gait Initiation in Adult Patients With Persistent Concussion Symptoms.

Objective: To compare dual task cost (DTC) during gait initiation (GI) between a population of patients with persistent concussion symptoms (PCS) and age-matched healthy participants.

Design: Cohort study.

Setting: University research center.

Gait kinematics differ by bout duration and setting.

Background: Gait kinematics differ between settings and among young and older adults with and without knee osteoarthritis. Out-of-lab data has a variety of walking bout characteristics compared to controlled in-lab settings. The effect of walking bout duration on gait analysis results is unclear, and there is no standardized procedure for segmenting or selecting out-of-lab data for analysis.

Challenges and advances in the use of wearable sensors for lower extremity biomechanics.

The use of wearable sensors for the collection of lower extremity biomechanical data is increasing in popularity, in part due to the ease of collecting data and the ability to capture movement outside of traditional biomechanics laboratories. Consequently, an increasing number of researchers are facing the challenges that come with utilizing the data captured by wearable sensors. These challenges include identifying/calculating meaningful measures from unfamiliar data types (measures of acceleration and angular velocity instead of positions and joint angles), defining sensor-to-segment alignments for calculating traditional biomechanics metrics, using reduced sensor sets and machine learning to predict unmeasured signals, making decisions about when and how to make algorithms freely available, and developing or replicating methods to perform basic processing tasks such as recognizing activities of interest or identifying gait events.

Lower Extremity Inverse Kinematics Results Differ Between Inertial Measurement Unit- and Marker-Derived Gait Data.

In-lab, marker-based gait analyses may not represent real-world gait. Real-world gait analyses may be feasible using inertial measurement units (IMUs) in combination with open-source data processing pipelines (OpenSense). Before using OpenSense to study real-world gait, we must determine whether these methods estimate joint kinematics similarly to traditional marker-based motion capture (MoCap) and differentiate groups with clinically different gait mechanics.

A novel method to quantify individual limb contributions to standing postural control.

Background: Understanding individual limb contributions to standing postural control is valuable when evaluating populations with asymmetric function (e.g., stroke, amputations).

Dual task cost in adults with persistent concussion symptoms.

Background: Persistent concussion symptoms (PCS) negatively affects common activities of daily living including deficits in both single and dual-task (DT) gait. DT gait deficits are present post-concussion; however, task prioritization and the effects of differing cognitive challenge remain unexplored in the PCS population.

Research Question: The purpose of this study was to investigate single and dual-task gait performance in individuals with persistent concussion symptoms and to identify task priorization strategies during DT trials.

Reproducibility of the CROSS Trial Results in the Multimodal Treatment of Esophageal Cancer in Daily Practice: A Single Center Retrospective Observational Study.

Background: Treatment of nonmetastatic esophageal cancer with curative intention remains a major challenge. Neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy followed by surgery, as described in the CROSS trial in 2012, has been established as a standard of care. With this retrospective observational study, we aimed to analyze the results of the CROSS regimen in daily practice over the last 10 years at the St.

Effects of contact/collision sport history on gait in early- to mid-adulthood.

Background: To determine the effect of contact/collision sport participation on measures of single-task (ST) and dual-task (DT) gait among early- to middle-aged adults.

Methods: The study recruited 113 adults (34.88 ± 11.

Adults with knee osteoarthritis use different coordinative strategies to transition from swing to stance compared to young asymptomatic adults.

Background: Neuromuscular changes that occur with aging or joint pathology likely alter the coordinative strategies that adults use to walk and to recover from perturbations during gait. Differences in coordination patterns or in how coordination changes in response to a challenge may provide insight into neuromuscular targets for falls prevention interventions.

Research Question: Do young asymptomatic adults, older asymptomatic adults, and older adults with knee OA alter their lower extremity segment coordination differently in response to an increase in walking speed?.

Assessment of feasibility and utility of universal referral to specialty palliative care in a multidisciplinary amyotrophic lateral sclerosis clinic: A cohort study.

Introduction: Although the value of palliative care integration in multidisciplinary amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) clinics has been increasingly recognized, limited data are available demonstrating the feasibility and utility of a palliative care specialist embedded in an ALS clinic. The purpose of this study is to describe the feasibility and utility of a universal outpatient referral model for specialty palliative care for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of initial patient visits with a palliative care physician in a multidisciplinary ALS clinic at an academic institution.

Interactions Between Different Age-Related Factors Affecting Balance Control in Walking.

Maintaining balance during walking is a continuous sensorimotor control problem. Throughout the movement, the central nervous system has to collect sensory data about the current state of the body in space, use this information to detect possible threats to balance and adapt the movement pattern to ensure stability. Failure of this sensorimotor loop can lead to dire consequences in the form of falls, injury and death.

Effect of increased serum 25(OH)D and calcium on structure and function of post-menopausal women: a pilot study.

Unlabelled: The purpose was to determine if increasing serum 25(OH)D and calcium in postmenopausal women increased skeletal muscle size, strength, balance, and functional task performance while decreasing muscle fatigue. PCSA of the vastus lateralis increased and ascent of stairs time decreased after 6 months of increased serum 25(OH)D.

Purpose: The Institute of Medicine recommends ≥ 20 ng/ml of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] for bone and overall health.

Fathers of Children With Congenital Heart Disease: Sources of Stress and Opportunities for Intervention.

Objectives: To examine sources of stress for fathers of children with congenital heart disease and opportunities for intervention to prevent or reduce paternal mental health problems.

Design: Qualitative study using online crowdsourcing, an innovative research methodology to create an online community to serve as a research sample.

Setting: Yammer, an online social networking site.

Propulsive joint powers track with sensor-derived angular velocity: A potential tool for lab-less gait retraining.

Lower propulsive joint powers, particularly at the ankle, are often observed in older compared to young adults. Interventions to increase joint powers often require labs with motion capture and force treadmill technology. Translating these interventions out of the lab requires identifying portable measures that track (i.

Comparisons of Knee Extensor Functional Demand During Gait by Age, Physical Activity Level, and the Impact of Acute Exercise and Walking Speed.

The link between age-related changes in muscle strength and gait is unclear. We tested if knee extensor functional demand differs by age and physical activity status and if functional demand increases with walking speed or after exercise. Gait and knee extensor muscle torque were collected from young adults and highly and less active older adults before and after treadmill walking.

Comparison of measurement protocols to estimate preferred walking speed between sites.

Background: Walking speed influences a variety of typical outcome measures in gait analysis. Many researchers use a participant's preferred walking speed (PWS) during gait analysis with a goal of trying to capture how a participant would typically walk. However, the best practices for estimating PWS and the impact of laboratory size and walk distance are still unclear.

Measuring markers of aging and knee osteoarthritis gait using inertial measurement units.

Differences in gait with age or knee osteoarthritis have been demonstrated in laboratory studies using optical motion capture (MoCap). While MoCap is accurate and reliable, it is impractical for assessment outside the laboratory. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) may be useful in these situations.

Prevalence of May-Thurner Syndrome in Patients with Deep Vein Thrombosis at a Large Medical Referral Center.

Objective:  We set out to investigate the prevalence of May-Thurner syndrome (MTS) in a cohort of patients diagnosed with iliofemoral deep vein thrombosis at a large medical referral center.

Materials And Methods:  We retrospectively analyzed a cohort of 496 patients who were referred to the emergency unit of a large medical referral center with suspected venous thromboembolism (VTE) and were diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis of the iliac veins and/or the thigh on ultrasound. We retrospectively assessed the presence of MTS in the primary ultrasound examination and on additional imaging (available in n = 193 patients).