Imperial News

Wearable body sensor could reduce harm caused by osteoathritis

by Kailey Nolan

Professor Alison McGregor describes an initiative to delay surgery for arthritic patients, extending their mobility and functionality.

How are you approaching this issue?

We want to implement a regular screening process for people over a certain age. This involves doing some very detailed testing to measure certain parameters like how the person walks and how the joints move, using technology similar to motion capture used in the animation industry. By applying mathematical and statistical models to these data, we can see if certain movements cause damage to the joints, identify who is more at risk of osteoarthritis and intervene early to try and manage it before surgery becomes the only option.

What is the next step?

Professor Alison McGregor

Professor Alison McGregor

We have developed a prototype for a discreet, wearable sensor, which we hope will act as a tool for biofeedback. It will incorporate our detailed analyses and simplify it, enabling clinicians to clearly show their patients how they are progressing and what exercises they need to do to improve. This is important as osteoarthritic patients often don’t fully understand why they are doing these exercises and therefore lack motivation, so we have seen a need to develop a clear, simple feedback tool, which the patient is more likely to respond to.

Tell is about your work looking at back pain and prevention with the British rowing team?

Typically, athletes fail to engage with the idea that they are damaging their body until it is too late. By developing a simple visual system that used real-time biofeedback to illustrate how changing their movements could achieve maximum performance while doing minimal damage, we found that they were more likely to understand and implement the change very quickly.

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