OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether resting joint angle is indicative of severity of spasticity of the elbow flexors in chronic stroke survivors. METHODS Seventeen hemiparetic stroke subjects (male: n = 13; female: n = 4; age: 37-89 years; 11 right and 6 left hemiplegia; averaged 54.8 months after stroke, ranging 12-107 months) participated in the study. The number of subjects with modified Ashwort...

Incidence of upper-limb overuse injuries among the manual wheelchair population has been found to be associated with hand-rim loading characteristics such as impact and peak loading on the hand rim during propulsion. One proposed method to reduce impact and peak loading is the use of a compliant hand rim, one that can displace relative to the wheel when impacted by the hand. A Variable Complian...

RELEVANCE FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE IN SPORT The following paper is an original research project which uses state of the art sport science physiological and biomechanical approaches to gain information about active computer games. This project is found to be particular relevant for the field of computer science in sport, since biomechanical and physiological knowledge is required to model, track and...

Manual wheelchair users commonly experience pain in their hands and wrists associated with the repetitive stress of propulsion. The objective of this research was to examine the effect of an ergonomic wheelchair handrim as an intervention designed to reduce pain in the hands and wrists and improve functional outcomes for manual wheelchair users. Three studies were conducted to achieve this obje...

BACKGROUND Knee osteoarthritis is 2-3 times more prevalent in females than males. Biomechanical differences in gait may play a role in this gender predisposition. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are gender-based biomechanical differences in the gait patterns of people with knee osteoarthritis. METHODS Three-dimensional gait analysis was performed on healthy (18 males and 2...

Purpose. To thoroughly analyze corneal deformation responses curves obtained by Ocular Response Analyzer (ORA) testing in order to improve subclinical keratoconus detection. Methods. Observational case series of 87 control and 73 subclinical keratoconus eyes. Examination included corneal topography, tomography, and biomechanical testing with ORA. Factor analysis, logistic regression, and receiv...

Measures of local dynamic stability, such as the local divergence exponent (lambda*(s)) quantify how quickly small perturbations deviate from an attractor that defines the motion. When the governing equations of motion are unknown, an attractor can be reconstructed by defining an appropriate state space. However, state space definitions are not unique and accepted methods for defining state spa...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS Surgical advancements rely heavily on validated animal models. The New Zealand White (NZW) rabbit is a widely used model for airway research, including regenerative medicine applications. Currently, the biomechanical properties of the normal rabbit trachea are not known. Our objective was to define these properties to assist in the standardization and understanding of futu...

BACKGROUND After anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR), motivation to return to previous levels of activity is high. Very few studies have used return-to-activity criteria to determine when to permit athletic play. Return-to-activity measures objectively evaluate functional limb symmetry; however, previous biomechanical studies have found gait deviations in these individuals that per...