Abstract Archive

Foot ligaments are non-linear viscoelastic structures that become stiffer as loading rate increases. This study aims to characterize the rate dependent stiffness of foot ligaments at various loading rates. After excising and potting bone-ligament-bone specimens, ligaments were displaced to 10% strai...

Five sprinters with unilateral transtibial amputations (TTAs) ran on a treadmill from 3-7 m/s using running-specific prostheses (RSPs) with three different stiffness categories. Sprinters’ step frequency symmetry was not affected by running speed or RSP stiffness. However, sprinters’ contact tim...

Osseointegrated prostheses for individuals with lower limb amputation are an alternative to socket-based prostheses that mitigate the residual limb pain and discomfort at the socket stump interface during walking. In transfemoral amputees, propulsion is primarily generated by the prosthesis, with co...

Vector coding was applied to examine changes in pelvis-knee coordination during a lateral step-down (LSD) performed at three speeds. Slower task performance led to increased pelvis-knee coupling and may indicate that a slower LSD is more challenging to perform than a faster LSD.

Knee kinetics using participant-specific body segment masses (BSMs) have not been predicted for cycling (C) and elliptical training (E). In this study, participants underwent gait (G), C, and E motion analysis experiments. Kinetics were computed with mass ratios scaled from total body mass (scaled I...

Head impact monitors can track athlete impacts and estimate their spatial and temporal aspects. And to monitor athletes in real-time, a monitoring system must report data accurately and precisely, and avoid reporting too many spurious, false events. For decades this has proven very labor intensive a...

Lower-limb joint negative mechanical powers during stand-to-sit movements were computed via inverse dynamics modelling to estimate the biomechanical energy available for regeneration with lower-limb prostheses and exoskeletons. Nine subjects performed 20 standing and sitting movements. Lower-limb ki...

The flatfoot and cavus foot can affect the physical performance of athletes and increase the appearance of musculoskeletal disorders. The arch of the foot behaves as an elastic structure connecting the forefoot and hindfoot. The purpose of this work was to analyze the morphology of the soles of the ...

The windlass mechanism is thought a key part of human foot form and function. Previously considered a passive tensioning of the plantar aponeurosis, we provide evidence that ankle plantar flexor, and plantar intrinsic foot muscles actively mediate the windlass mechanism and metatarsal-phalangeal joi...

ACL reconstructions aim to restore knee joint stability and decrease knee joint laxity. However, laxity in the frontal plane is not often studied during gait. Twenty-four young adults, twelve who had an ACL reconstruction, and twelve controls, were recruited to perform a maximum of ten gait trials e...

Glenohumeral stability is maintained by articular geometry, capsuloligamentous restraint, and rotator cuff muscle activation. Many rotator cuff force profiles have been employed in the cadaveric setting to maintain stability. This study aims to compare the glenohumeral joint stability afforded by co...

The force length relation (f-l-r) of the gastrocnemius medialis (GM) was assessed at extreme dorsiflexed positions using ultrasound, motion capture, electromyography (EMG) and dynamometry. Thereby, the beginning of the descending limb of the f-l-r was experimentally shown, allowing the determination...

Inter-limb leg stiffness changes during weight transfer of gait were used to uncover the body support strategies of children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy (HCP). Compared to controls, children with HCP showed greater stiffness sharing on the sound side both during weight release and weight acceptan...

Differences in predicted hip joint center (HJC) locations can affect the calculation of lower body dynamics related to daily living. This research compared kinetic output from models using the Seidel and Harrington HJC predictive methods. In normal healthy adults, there were significant differences ...

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a technique for feature extraction which identify strong patterns in a dataset and emphasize data variation. PCA can be used to characterise bone shape variations in tibia, fibula and femur on a paediatric population. PCA was performed on 64 femurs and 67 tibia/...

Annulus fibrosus (AF) cells of intervertebral discs (IVD) were cultured for 72h inside a 3D type I collagen matrix. When collagen matrix constructs were embedded with live AF cells, substantial matrix contraction (up to a 60% reduction in size) was observed. This contraction was not observed in cons...

Locomotion on land and in water requires the coordination of a great number of muscle activations and joint movements. Constant feedback about the position of own body parts in relation to the surrounding environment and the body itself (proprioception) is required to maintain stability and avoid fa...

The pattern of variability found in stride-to-stride fluctuations has been identified as fractal. Being fractal means that, in a healthy system, these physiological processes have time intervals between events that are neither equal nor independent. The statistical proprieties of these fluctuations ...

Allowing the arms to swing naturally while carrying a load yields a similar cost to carrying a load at the waist, which is generally considered to be the most inexpensive load carrying method.

The basis for identifying stance and swing phase to classify gait requires the accurate estimation when major gait events such as initial contact and toe off occur. This study examines the ability of the Beta Process Autoregressive Hidden Markov Model (BP-AR-HMM) to estimate initial contact and toe ...

Virtual reality (VR) is currently increasing in popularity as a medium for motor skill training, particularly in the areas of occupational skills and motor rehabilitation. However, there is still debate as to how well motor skills learned in a virtual environment transfer to the real world due to pe...

This study investigated whether the individual differences in knee extensor fatigue induced by sustained middle-level contraction are explained by one or more indices of muscle fatigue. Twenty-four healthy young men performed a sustained fatiguing contraction to task failure at 40% of maximal volunt...

For patients with knee osteoarthritis (KOA) downhill gait is often associated with pain. Therefore, the isometric muscle strength and gait biomechanics of 10 patients with moderate KOA was analysed during 4 different inclines and compared to a healthy control group (n=7). Patients with KOA showed si...

Individuals following ACL-Reconstruction (ACLR) often present with signs of persistent muscle weakness. In this study, measures of quadriceps strength and fatigue were compared between individuals following ACLR and healthy active controls. ACLR knees presented with patterns of fatigue resistance co...

Activities of daily living (ADL) often involve forward bending. Some of these tasks can be performed using a one-handed braced arm-to-thigh technique (BATT) to support the trunk on the thigh. Three common ADL (i.e. weeding, reaching for objects in low cupboards, and car egress) were simulated in the...

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a prevalent peripheral neuropathy due to median nerve compression. Non-neutral wrist posture and repetitive finger movement are proposed workplace risk factors for CTS. This study investigated median nerve blood flow, size, and tendon mechanics with ultrasound in 35 C...

This study investigated the relationship between joint angle variability and mean joint stiffness in two stroke patients who suffered different degree of impairment to lower extremity motor function.

The aim of this study was to determine how individual lower-limb muscles contributed to body COM acceleration during the first stance of sprint running when the runner presented a considerable side-to-side movement at the beginning of a sprint start. It remains unclear whether a wide step width affe...

Commercially available lower-limb prostheses do not provide sensory feedback. Thus, amputees develop compensatory mechanisms to regain an effective postural control. In this work, we investigated the neuromuscular adaptations occurring after a lower-limb amputation. The dynamics and spatial structur...