Biomechanical motion analysis in the clinical environment : the dawn of a new era ?

Philip Rowe looks at biomechanical motion analysis and the work the department of Biomedical engineering at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK (formerly the Bioengineering Unit), has played a key role in these developments over the last 50 years

Topics of Bioengineering in Wikipedia

The present report aims to give a snapshot of how topics from the field of bioengineering (bioinformatics, bioprocess systems, biomedical engineering, biotechnology, etc.) are currently covered in the free electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia. It also offers insights and information about what Wikipedia is, how it functions, how and when to cite Wikipedian articles, if necessary. Several external wikis, devoted to topics of bioengineering, are also listed and reviewed

CDIO Experiences in Biomedical Engineering: Preparing Spanish Students for the Future of Medicine and Medical Device Technology

Biomedical engineering is one of the more recent fields of engineering, aimed at the application of engineering principles, methods and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes, mainly as a support for preventive, diagnostic or therapeutic tasks. Biomedical engineering professionals are expected to achieve, during their studies and professional practice, considerable knowledge of both health sciences and engineering. Studying biomedical engineering programmes, or combining pre-graduate studies in life sciences with graduate studies in engineering, or vice versa, are typical options for becoming qualified biomedical engineering professionals, although there are additional interesting alternatives, to be discussed. According to our experience, the graduates and post-graduates from multidisciplinary engineering programmes, not just from biomedical engineering, but also from more traditional fields including industrial, mechanical and telecommunications engineering, can play varied and very relevant roles in the biomedical industry and in extremely complex biomedical device development projects. In spite of the different ways of becoming a professional of the biomedical engineering field, it is true that their impact as successful professionals can be importantly increased, by means of an adequate integration into their curricula of fundamental biomedical engineering design concepts, methodologies and good practices, applied to the development of biomedical devices. In this study we present the complete development and comparative study of three courses, belonging to different plans of study taught at the Technical University of Madrid and benefiting from using a CDIO approach focused on the development of biomedical devices. The three courses are “Development of Medical Devices”, “Bioengineering Design” and “Biomedical Engineering”, respectively belonging to the “Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering”, to the “Master’s Degree in Industrial Engineering” and to the “Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering”. During the courses, groups of students live through the development process of different biomedical devices aimed at providing answers to relevant social needs. Depending on their background and European credits assigned to the different courses, students carry out more conceptual projects or are able to live through more complete CDIO experiences. Main benefits, lessons learned and future challenges, linked to these courses, are analyzed, taking account of the results from 2014-2015 academic year

Computational Simulations for Aortic Coarctation: Representative Results From a Sampling of Patients

Treatments for coarctation of the aorta (CoA) can alleviate blood pressure (BP) gradients(D), but long-term morbidity still exists that can be explained by altered indices of hemodynamics and biomechanics. We introduce a technique to increase our understanding of these indices for CoA under resting and nonresting conditions, quantify their contribution to morbidity, and evaluate treatment options. Patient-specific computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models were created from imaging and BP data for one normal and four CoA patients (moderate native CoA: D12 mmHg, severe native CoA: D25 mmHg and postoperative end-to-end and end-to-side patients: D0 mmHg). Simulations incorporated vessel deformation, downstream vascular resistance and compliance. Indices including cyclic strain, time-averaged wall shear stress (TAWSS), and oscillatory shear index (OSI) were quantified. Simulations replicated resting BP and blood flow data. BP during simulated exercise for the normal patient matched reported values. Greatest exercise-induced increases in systolic BP and mean and peak DBP occurred for the moderate native CoA patient (SBP: 115 to 154 mmHg; mean and peak DBP: 31 and 73 mmHg). Cyclic strain was elevated proximal to the coarctation for native CoA patients, but reduced throughout the aorta after treatment. A greater percentage of vessels was exposed to subnormal TAWSS or elevated OSI for CoA patients. Local patterns of these indices reported to correlate with atherosclerosis in normal patients were accentuated by CoA. These results apply CFD to a range of CoA patients for the first time and provide the foundation for future progress in this area

Біомедична інженерна освіта в Україні

History of incipience and formation of bioengineering profession is described.Pecullarities of training of bioengineers and technicians under conditions of transformation of the higher educationinto the through step-by-step training of specialists are analyzed. It is found that general demand in bioengineers is 3550-10000 persons. Urgent problem of the further development of biomedical engineering education are formulated

Metabolic Patterning on a Chip: Towards in vitro Liver Zonation of Primary Rat and Human Hepatocytes

An important number of healthy and diseased tissues shows spatial variations in their metabolic capacities across the tissue. The liver is a prime example of such heterogeneity where the gradual changes in various metabolic activities across the liver sinusoid is termed as “zonation” of the liver. Here, we introduce the Metabolic Patterning on a Chip (MPOC) platform capable of dynamically creating metabolic patterns across the length of a microchamber of liver tissue via actively enforced gradients of various metabolic modulators such as hormones and inducers. Using this platform, we were able to create continuous liver tissues of both rat and human origin with gradually changing metabolic activities. The gradients we have created in nitrogen, carbohydrate and xenobiotic metabolisms recapitulated an in vivo like zonation and zonal toxic response. Beyond its application in recapitulation of liver zonation in vitro as we demonstrate here, the MPOC platform can be used and expanded for a variety of purposes including better understanding of heterogeneity in many different tissues during developmental and adult stages

Biomedical applications team tasks

The status of the biomedical applications team is discussed along with its activity in applications engineering. Various technology requests are summarized

Numerical Accuracy Comparison of Two Boundary Conditions Commonly used to Approximate Shear Stress Distributions in Tissue Engineering Scaffolds Cultured under Flow Perfusion

Flow-induced shear stresses have been found to be a stimulatory factor in pre-osteoblastic cells seeded in 3D porous scaffolds and cultured under continuous flow perfusion. However, due to the complex internal structure of the scaffolds, whole scaffold calculations of the local shear forces are computationally-intensive. Instead, representative volume elements (RVEs), which are obtained by extracting smaller portions of the scaffold, are commonly used in literature without a numerical accuracy standard. Hence, the goal of this study is to examine how closely the whole scaffold simulations are approximated by the two types of boundary conditions used to enable the RVEs: "wall boundary condition" (WBC) and "periodic boundary condition" (PBC). To that end, Lattice-Boltzmann Method fluid dynamics simulations were used to model the surface shear stresses in 3D scaffold reconstructions, obtained from high resolution microcomputed tomography images. It was found that despite the RVEs being sufficiently larger than 6 times the scaffold pore size (which is the only accuracy guideline found in literature), the stresses were still significantly under-predicted by both types of boundary conditions: between 20 and 80% average error, depending on the scaffold's porosity. Moreover, it was found that the error grew with higher porosity. This is likely due to the small pores dominating the flow field, and thereby negating the effects of the unrealistic boundary conditions, when the scaffold porosity is small. Finally, it was found that the PBC was always more accurate and computationally efficient than the WBC. Therefore, it is the recommended type of RVE. Overall, this work provides a previously-unavailable guidance to researchers regarding the best choice of boundary conditions for RVE simulations

Biomechanics of Pediatric Manual Wheelchair Mobility

Currently, there is limited research of the biomechanics of pediatric manual wheelchair mobility. Specifically, the biomechanics of functional tasks and their relationship to joint pain and health is not well understood. To contribute to this knowledge gap, a quantitative rehabilitation approach was applied for characterizing upper extremity biomechanics of manual wheelchair mobility in children and adolescents during propulsion, starting, and stopping tasks. A Vicon motion analysis system captured movement, while a SmartWheel simultaneously collected three-dimensional forces and moments occurring at the handrim. A custom pediatric inverse dynamics model was used to evaluate three-dimensional upper extremity joint motions, forces, and moments of 14 children with spinal cord injury (SCI) during the functional tasks. Additionally, pain and health-related quality of life outcomes were assessed. This research found that joint demands are significantly different amongst functional tasks, with greatest demands placed on the shoulder during the starting task. Propulsion was significantly different from starting and stopping at all joints. We identified multiple stroke patterns used by the children, some of which are not standard in adults. One subject reported average daily pain, which was minimal. Lower than normal physical health and higher than normal mental health was found in this population. It can be concluded that functional tasks should be considered in addition to propulsion for rehabilitation and SCI treatment planning. This research provides wheelchair users and clinicians with a comprehensive, biomechanical, mobility assessment approach for wheelchair prescription, training, and long-term care of children with SCI

Tissue Engineering for Intervertebral Disk Degeneration

Many challenges confront intervertebral disk engineering owing to complexity and the presence of extraordinary stresses. Rebuilding a disk of native function could be useful for removal of the symptoms and correction of altered spine kinematics. Improvement in understanding of disk properties and techniques for disk engineering brings promise to the fabrication of a functional motion segment for the treatment of disk degeneration. Increasing sophistication of techniques available in biomedical sciences will bring its application into clinics. This review provides an account of current progress and challenges of intervertebral disk bioengineering and discusses means to move forward and toward bedside translation. © 2011.postprin