This Major Research Instrumentation award will enable engineers, clinical scientists, anthropologists, and other researchers to gain an understanding of how people walk and run. Studies of human walking and running and the associated forces that are placed on the body are central to solving critical problems in anatomically based design, injury risk and prevention, robotics development, and exoskeleton design. Yet coordinated and controlled studies of movement and forces are difficult. The purchase of a force-sensing treadmill will make such data collection possible at Virginia Tech and nearby schools such as the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Radford University. In conjunction with 3-D motion capture, the force-sensing treadmill will allow researchers to study how people from many populations produce force and power with their legs under multiple situations. It will allow for new studies in the following areas: (1) understanding the causes of lower-body musculoskeletal injury, (2) understanding changes in walking and running that result from lower-body disability or injury, (3) developing diagnostic and treatment algorithms to monitor and assess patient function following lower body injury and/or surgery, and (4) understanding how exoskeletons, feedback, and movement retraining can successfully rehabilitate the injured and improve mobility in the disabled.
The research projects undertaken and interventions developed as a result of the treadmill will improve the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of movement disorders. The team aims to characterize movement and loading asymmetry as well as energy exchange during various movement conditions in order to develop interventions to restore normal locomotion. A major goal is to identify compensatory movement patterns that are consistent across different populations, and develop ways of identifying these compensations in settings without a force-sensing treadmill. These insights will also be used to develop and evaluate novel low-power, active soft orthotics as a means of improving gait mechanics and minimizing pain. Exoskeletons will also be developed to provide increased capability and promote physical activity. The treadmill will be used to collect relevant biological signals during a wide range of activities, and combine the result with both neuromuscular and dynamics models. Finally, the treadmill will allow data collection on foot loading that will illuminate how foot shape and mechanics influence loading patterns and ultimately stress fractures. This project was supported by the Divisions of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation and Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems in the Directorate for Engineering.