Alex Peebles of Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Throughout the entire world engineers are tackling problems related to health and medicine. This talk will begin with a broad overview of the active areas of research in biomedical engineering, such as myoelectric controlled prosthesis, medical instrumentation design, implant design, and finish with specific research projects on falls in persons with multiple sclerosis (MS) and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in athletics. Approximately 500,000 people in the United States have MS, which is a neurological disorder that affects gait and balance and results in about half of persons with MS experiencing falls. Falls frequently result in injury requiring medical attention and are associated with activity curtailment. As falls most frequently occur during dynamic tasks, such as walking, the first project discussed focuses on understanding why people with MS fall during gait. Fallers with MS, non-fallers with MS, and healthy controls walked on a treadmill while motion capture technology measured kinematics. Dynamic balance was compared between groups, finding that fallers with MS display a reduced ability to control their center of mass in the frontal plane, which may be an indicator of balance dysfunction and fall risk. Dynamic balance was then compared to specific physiological impairments, showing that individuals with worse sensory loss, motor impairment, and slower reaction times had worse dynamic balance, which displays the multifactorial nature of dynamic instability in persons with MS. The last part of this talk will summarize current biomechanical approaches aimed at understanding and preventing ACL injuries in athletes. Approximately 100,000 ACL injuries happen in the United States each year, which results in substantial time lost from competition and often requires surgical repair. Even with surgical reconstruction these athletes are at a higher chance of re-tearing their ACL and of developing early onset knee osteoarthritis. Current biomechanical approaches to understanding why these injuries occur include cadaveric testing and in vivo energetic analysis through use of inverse dynamics.

Biography:

Alex Peebles will be giving a talk entitled “Biomedical Engineering: application of engineering principles to solve problems related to health and medicine”. Mr. Peebles obtained a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Roger Williams University (May 2015) and a MS in Bioengineering from the University of Kansas (May 2017), and is now a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics at Virginia Tech. His research focuses on human movement biomechanics with specific interests in balance/falls and athletic injury.

Alex Peebles of Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Biography: