Share this:
A multidisciplinary team of Mayo Clinic researchers and others is looking at the ergonomics of people who use manual wheelchairs. They seek to identify metrics to quantify arm use associated with rotator cuff pathology and progressive degeneration, which will inform the development of personalized interventions.
In general, people lose functionality in their rotator cuffs — the shoulder muscles and tendons keeping bones in place — as they age. However, for people with a spinal cord injury who are dependent on their arms for both mobility and daily living activities, this natural progression is accelerated.
The researchers, led by Missy Morrow, Ph.D., section head of the Health Care Systems Engineering section in the Division of Health Care Delivery Research, are conducting a study comparing arm use in individuals with spinal cord injury who use a manual wheelchair, and able-bodied individuals. In their first publication: Inertial Measurement Unit-Derived Ergonomic Metrics for Assessing Arm Use in Manual Wheelchair Users With Spinal Cord Injury: A Preliminary Report, they describe how they used inertial measurement unit sensors worn by the study participants for two days to collect measurements and define risk and recovery metrics. Participants also had shoulder MRIs taken approximately 1 year apart, to evaluate the changes in rotator cuff tendon health over time.
Read the rest of the article on Advancing the Science.
________________________________________
Other Mayo Clinic medical research websites:
- Research at Mayo Clinic
- Discovery’s Edge
- Advancing the Science
- Mayo Clinic Laboratories
- Forefront
- Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine
- Center for Regenerative Medicine
- Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery
Share this:
Related articles
According to a recent study by the American Cancer Society, cancer is a leading cause of death among those of Hispanic heritage living in the U.S. Hispanic ...
De Quervain's tenosynovitis (pronounced da-KWUHR-vanes teena-sine-ah-VITE-us) is a complicated name for a condition that's been referred to as "mother's thumb," "mommy wrist" and "gamer's thumb" — ...
You might need supplemental screenings if you've been diagnosed with dense breast tissue. Women with dense breast tissue have less fat and more glandular and ...