2004 IRISH SCIENTIST YEAR BOOK

Home Page

Table of contents

Index by Author

Index by topics

Search


University of Limerick
Derek O'Keeffe
Footprints of the future

International Research Partners

The Biomedical Electronics Laboratory 1 at the University of Limerick (UL), has since its inception been primarily interested in gait (walking) rehabilitation using functional electrical stimulation. In particular, the Centre has been researching the correction of Hemiplegic Drop Foot, a condition resulting from stroke where the sufferer cannot lift his/her foot or dorsiflex while walking. During the gait cycle, the ability to dorsiflex is critical as it provides clearance for the foot while the leg is swinging through the air during the swing phase. With a Drop Foot sufferer, the lack of dorsiflexion results in a dragging of the leg and, as a result, has a significant impact on a person's gait.

As part of the centre's ongoing research work into developing novel sensor solutions for the control of portable gait correction electronic systems, a research collaboration has been established with Harvard Medical School 2 , Boston, USA. The objective of this research is to examine the possibility of using multi-axis gyroscopes on the hip of a subject to deduce enough information to detect the key gait events (in order to control the application of the electrical stimulation) rather than the traditional distributed sensor strategy of electronic gait correction systems.

If it were possible to have the sensors in the same hip worn box as the microcontroller, this would have many advantages, such as simplification of the gait correction device and better ergonomics (as no unnecessary sensor devices would be strapped to legs). It is hoped that the findings of this work will be extremely interesting and useful to a wide variety of people, including researchers in the field of rehabilitation, engineers designing the next generation medical devices, and patients whose lives hopefully will be easier every day with the need for sensor placement removed.

The research work will be carried out by Dr Derek O'Keeffe, UL, at Harvard's Motion Analysis Laboratory. This work is supported by the Irish Fulbright Commission 3 .


References

1. http://www.ul.ie/~bel

2. http://www.med.harvard.edu/

3. http://www.fulbright.ie/

Contact: Dr Derek O'Keeffe, Biomedical Electronics Laboratory, Electronic and Computer Engineering Department, University of Limerick;
E-mail: [email protected]