Functional Outcome After Successful Internal Fixation Versus Salvage Arthroplasty of Patients With a Femoral Neck Fracture

Objectives: To determine patient independency, health-related and disease-specific quality of life (QOL), gait pattern, and muscle strength in patients after salvage arthroplasty for failed internal fixation of a femoral neck fracture. Design: Secondary cohort study to a randomized controlled trial. Setting: Multicenter trial in the Netherlands, including 14 academic and nonacademic hospitals. Patients: Patients after salvage arthroplasty for failed internal fixation of a femoral neck fracture were studied. A comparison was made with patients who healed uneventfully after internal fixation. Intervention: None (observatory study). Main Outcome Measurements: Patient characteristics, SF-12, and Western Ontario McMaster osteoarthritis index scores were collected. Gait parameters were measured using plantar pressure measurement. Maximum isometric forces of the hip muscles were measured using a handheld dynamome

A protocol for the comparison of reaching gesture kinematics in physical versus immersive virtual reality

Virtual environments are increasingly being used for upper limb rehabilitation in post-stroke patients. However, still there is no clear evidence that the movements performed in virtual reality are comparable to those performed in the physical world from the kinematic point-of-view. The goal of the proposed study is thus to determine if aimed reaching movements made in a 3D ecological and immersive virtual environment – displayed through a Head Mounted Display (HMD) – are comparable to movements performed in the real world. The study foresees the realization of two comparable environmental settings representing the shelf of a supermarket. Three different groups of subjects (healthy young adults, healthy elderly, and post-stroke subjects, n=15 each) are asked to reach 5 times toward 9 targets in 3 different conditions: virtual reality, physical reality, and physical reality while holding a controller. Their movements are tracked with a stereo-photogrammetric motion capture system; movement times, peak velocities, and joint angles are then extracted for analysis. This protocol will allow comparing reaching movements, and also excluding of the effects related to holding a controller. A preliminary trial reveled the feasibility of the protocol, thus the experiment will be carried out in the next months. If results will be encouraging, VR should be considered in rehabilitative treatments as a useful means to elicit patients’ motivation, but also appropriate movement synergies, thus promoting a better recovery of upper limb functions

Advancing Analysis Techniques for Plantar Pressure Videos via Open-Access Contributions

While dynamic plantar pressure measurements are commonly used for clinical evaluation of gait-related problems, computational analysis techniques for these datasets are few and farbetween. To address this issue, we introduce an open-access database of plantar pressure videos for researchers to develop algorithms around

Posterior spinal surgery for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis does not induce compensatory increases in distal adjacent segment motion: a prospective gait analysis study

Background Context: Patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) perform surprisingly well after spinal correction and fusion. It was previously hypothesized that, during gait, certain mechanisms compensate for the loss in spinal motion. Still, previous studies could not identify such compensatory mechanisms in the lower body. Purpose: This study aims to test the hypothesis of a compensatory increased motion of the distal unfused part of the spine during gait after posterior spinal correction and fusion. Study: This is a prospective gait study. Patients and Methods: Twelve patients with AIS were included. Sets of three VICON skin markers were used to measure the 3D motion of the proximal part of the fusion in relation to the pelvis (PFP) and the distal part of the fusion in relation to the pelvis (DFP). By doing so, PFP represents the motion of the fused and unfused parts of the spine, and DFP represents the motion of the unfused part of the spine. Measurements were performed preoperatively and 3 and 12 months after posterior spinal correction and fusion. Results: Surgery resulted in a decrease in PFP transversal plane range of motion (ROM) (8.3° vs. 5.9°, p=.006). No compensatory increase in the ROM of DFP could be identified. Actually, DFP transversal plane ROM also decreased (8.2° vs. 5.6°, p=.019). No improvement over time was observed when comparing the 3- and 12-month postoperative measurements. Conclusions: The hypothesis of a compensatory increase in motion of the distal unfused segments after spinal fusion for AIS is a much researched and controversial topic. This study is the first to study this hypothesis in such detail during gait and could not demonstrate such increase