Analysis of gait biomechanics in healthy adults during normal and constrained walking
Gait analysis is an essential and commonly used tool in understanding walking mechanisms in healthy and (neurologically-)impaired people. Over the recent years, gait analysis has increasingly been used to guide the development of new gait rehabilitation protocols and assistive robotic devices as well, owing to the insights on individual differences and general trends in locomotion it provides.
Our project, which assumes this and several other experimental studies involving humans, aims to develop a personalised framework for robot-assisted gait therapy. In other words, our goal is to develop control algorithms and robotic devices that will take into account each patient’s unique condition and act accordingly to deliver as relevant interaction as possible. This is a very exciting area of the human-robot interaction field, but its full potential remains largely unexplored. This is where our project aims to contribute.
As the first step towards that goal, we have designed the study you are invited to participate in, provided you meet the inclusion/exclusion criteria. These criteria are necessary to make the study feasible and to allow us to focus on specific research questions we want to investigate. The goal of this study is to learn more about healthy adults’ walking patterns and compensatory mechanisms, which will form a starting point for the patient studies to come, as well as for the framework this project aims to design. (The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Melbourne on 11/01/2021, #:2021-20623-15928-5.)
Below are a few key points to know about the study. You can download more details and the consent form you will be asked to sign if you decide to participate using the links below. As a participant, you are:
– participating voluntarily, and have the right to withdraw at any time, no questions asked;
– a healthy, young adult (18-45 years) with no known lower limb (leg) impairments;
– asked to come to the lab on three separate days, preferably within a week or two: the first session takes about 2h30min (familiarisation with the experimental conditions), and the second and third about 3h30min each (data-collection);
– required to bare your legs and pelvic area (more details in the attached PLS), but your gender is represented by at least one study researcher in the lab;
– participating in a non-public study (i.e., no other person is present other than you and study investigators in the lab), and no personal details will ever be published that would allow identifying you in any way.
If you are interested in participating in this study or would like to know more before making a decision, kindly fill in the form below, and the principal investigator will contact you shortly.
Thank you so much for your interest in participating! We highly appreciate it!