Congratulation to Jessica Zistatsis who has been invited to present PlayGait at the Technology Transfer Session of the 2017 AOPA World Congress in Las Vegas, NV. Click here to read more on the AOPA conference.
KM Steele, BR Shuman, MH Schwartz (2017) “Crouch severity is a poor predictor of elevated oxygen consumption in cerebral palsy.” Journal of Biomechanics
Journal article in Journal of Biomechanics:
Does energy consumption during walking increase with crouch severity among children with cerebral palsy?
Abstract: Children with cerebral palsy (CP) expend more energy to walk compared to typically-developing peers. One of the most prevalent gait patterns among children with CP, crouch gait, is often singled out as especially exhausting. The dynamics of crouch gait increase external flexion moments and the demand on extensor muscles. This elevated demand is thought to dramatically increase energy expenditure. However, the impact of crouch severity on energy expenditure has not been investigated among children with CP. We evaluated oxygen consumption and gait kinematics for 573 children with bilateral CP. The average net nondimensional oxygen consumption during gait of the children with CP (0.18 ± 0.06) was 2.9 times that of speed-matched typically-developing peers. Crouch severity was only modestly related to oxygen consumption, with measures of knee flexion angle during gait explaining only 5–20% of the variability in oxygen consumption. While knee moment and muscle activity were moderately to strongly correlated with crouch severity (r2 = 0.13–0.73), these variables were only weakly correlated with oxygen consumption (r2 = 0.02–0.04). Thus, although the dynamics of crouch gait increased muscle demand, these effects did not directly result in elevated energy expenditure. In clinical gait analysis, assumptions about an individual’s energy expenditure should not be based upon kinematics or kinetics alone. Identifying patient-specific factors that contribute to increased energy expenditure may provide new pathways to improve gait for children with CP.
Heather Feldner receives Harlan Hahn Award
Harlan Hahn was a well known disability rights activist and scholar, after he passed away the University of Washington received an endowment fund to support the integration of disability studies into research and education.
Heather Feldner was awarded $4000 to pursue the following project, as summarized below:
The Harlan Hahn Endowment Fund will support the creation and delivery of a multidisciplinary technology design course curriculum that infuses disability studies content and encourages student activism within the science and engineering communities of UW and the disability communities of Seattle. Students will gain exposure to seminal disability studies scholarship about the social and complex embodiment models of disability, the history of disability discrimination and the Disability Rights Movement, and explore how disability studies can inform issues of accessibility and inclusive design that have been historically conceptualized within a medical model of disability. Each student will participate in a technology co-design project with a disabled community member serving as a consultant and project lead. Funding will also support the assessment of student attitudes and knowledge of disability studies principles prior to and after completing the course, as well as support dissemination of the course model and outcomes at a national engineering conference in 2018.
Students Present at NWBS 2017 and Michael Rosenberg named top PhD Presentation
Ben Shuman, Brianna Goodwin, Michael Rosenberg, and Jessica Zistatsis all presented at this year’s Northwest Biomechanics Symposium in Eugene, OR.
A special congratulations to Michael Rosenberg who won the award for the top PhD presentation at NWBS! 
Congratulations to Keshia Peters for receiving the College of Engineering’s Professional Staff Award!
Congratulations to Keshia Peters for receiving the College of Engineering’s Professional staff award! Keshia’s dedication to excellence and her commitment to seeing the goals of this lab realized are evident in the ways in which she both diligently leads her own projects and supports the research efforts of all of the other teams of the lab.
Here are just a few of the ways in which Keshia has and is making in impact in the Ability and Innovation Lab:
coordinating with collaborators at Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare (St. Pual, MN) and KU Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) to facilitate collaboration and improve data collection and management procedures; mentoring teams of undergraduate students on capstone and research projects; managing day-to-day lab activities and providing research support as a technician and IRB guru; playing a major role in the setup of our new collaborative lab space (AMP Lab); conducting her own research projects (to be presented at the 2017 ASB Conference in August!); acting as a first contact to introduce interested school and community groups to the work ongoing in our lab.
Thanks again for all that you do for us, Keshia. Your recognition is well deserved!