Body
Every summer, our research group welcomes talented university students to collaborate with our team members on real-world engineering projects that have a clinical impact. This year, 12 students joined us from universities across the country, working on projects ranging from the development of computer models to assess Parkinson’s disease to analyzing how a powered knee-ankle prosthesis can impact overall gait biomechanics. Our first group recently finished their projects and presented at a poster session in late July. Read more below for a summary of their projects.
Quinn Hlava, Biology and Psychology major at the University of Georgia
Project Title: Changes in Spinal Signal Propagation Time after Transcutaneous Electrical Spinal Stimulation in Stroke Survivors
I worked on was the Spinal Stimulation Project with Dr. Yaejin Moon. We investigated how spinal cord stimulation during gait training affects overall spinal cord excitability in stroke survivors. I investigated how the spinal signal propagation time (the time it takes for stimulation to evoke a muscle response) changed after stimulation and gait training.
Erin Jones, Biomedical Engineering major at Texas A&M University
Project Title: Impact of Powered Knee-Ankle Prosthesis on Gait Biomechanics
This summer I investigated if a powered knee-ankle prosthesis allows for better replication of healthy gait biomechanics and less gait compensations, reducing the chance of back pain and injury in amputees. I did this by analyzing motion capture data of subjects walking with the powered leg versus their own prosthesis.
Ibrahim Mokhtar, Biological Sciences major and Creative Writing minor at the University of Southern California
Project Title: Determining the Efficiency of Video and Text as Instructional Materials for the Low Cost Socket System
This summer I constructed a set of instructional materials for the Low Cost Socket Fabrication Method using both video and text as mediums. I then tested the effectiveness and efficiency of both mediums by having those with little prosthetic experience use either the video or text to fabricate a socket for a plaster model.
Riley Pieper, Biomedical Engineering major at the University of Wisconsin Madison
Project Title: Simulating Clinician Judgement in Detecting Motor Symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease with Machine Learning
With the ultimate goal of using Apple watches to monitor the symptoms of Parkinson’s patients throughout their daily lives, I worked with data acquired in a clinical setting to construct computational models that detect and assess symptomatic behavior. Using a variety of machine learning techniques, I optimized model performance by developing nuanced approaches to mimic the judgment of clinicians.
Gabriela Ronning-Arnesen, Biomedical Engineering major at Saint Louis University
Project Title: Computing Heart Rate Variability from Wearable Sensors to Measure Post-Stroke Recovery
I created an extraction code in Python to get ECG metrics, specifically heart rate variability, from ECG sensor data. I investigated the correlation between heart rate variability and the level of post-stroke recovery measured through the functional independence measure. We hypothesized that during the inpatient rehabilitation process, heart rate variability will progress towards normative parameters.