Robotic instrument for measuring leg stiffness to detect likelihood for injury
Abstract
Musculoskeletal injuries are a major challenge for the US military. These injuries occurdomestically and abroad, costing the armed"" forces almost a billion dollars in combined patient carecosts and wages. In addition, musculoskeletal injuries can drastically red""uce warfightereffectiveness~an issue that is especially important for small, elite military units that are oftenused today. The pu"rpose of this DURIP proposal is to construct a robotic instrument that permitsthe automated and personalized assessment of musculos"keletal injury risk and treatment. Theproposed instrument quantifies leg joint stiffness, which has been linked to injury andbiome"chanical pathologies. The instrument combines state-of-the art technologies frombiomechanics and robotics that will enable new insight into the mechanics of injury. The vision ofthe Principal Investigator is to develop a valuable instrument that can help clinici"ans quickly andeasily determine if a service member is at risk or ready for duty, as well as track changes that occurfrom therapy."" This proposal is supported by promising preliminary data, and the previous work ofthe PI that developed the analytical techniques."" We have shown that joint stiffness is increased inindividuals prone to musculoskeletal injury, and developed a framework to quanti""fy theseproperties in the human ankle during gait. With the development of the proposed roboticinstrument, we hope to extend our c""omputational and methodological techniques to assess thestiffness of the whole leg simultaneously, including the hip, knee, and ank""le. Future work willfocus on the algorithms to quantify these properties, and the link to personalized assessment andtracking of j"oint health.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Sep 29, 2017
- Source ID
- N000141712966
Entities
People
- Elliott J Rouse
Organizations
- Board of Regents of the University of Michigan
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy