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Angular Momentum of Children With Cerebral Palsy With or Without the Use of a Posterior Walker

Presenters Name: 
Allison Lehmann
Primary Research Mentor: 
Shawn Russell
Secondary Research Mentor: 
Session: 
2
Location: 
Commonwealth Room
Grant Program Recipient: 
USOAR Program
Abstract: 

This research project focuses on a gait analysis of children with cerebral palsy. The purpose of this study is to analyze the angular momentum of these children with or without the use of a posterior walker. We will use angular momentum as an assessment of a patient’s dynamic stability because if a patient has a net angular momentum while walking it means that they are either unsteady or falling. To collect our data, we will use a 12 camera Vicon system with a full body marker set. The methods of analysis will be using the ADAMS system to create models of each patient and Matlab to calculate and plot the angular momentum data. The measurement that we will use and analyze to assess the patient’s stability is the excursion of angular momentum, or the difference from the lowest to highest peaks in angular momentum over time. We will look at this measurement for the lower body, torso, upper body, and full body and compare these measurements for patient trials with and without the use of the posterior walker. We hope to see a significant difference in excursion of angular momentum between the patients’ baseline trials and their trials with the walker. These results could be instrumental in understanding the gait of children with cerebral palsy and the assistive devices that could best improve their gait.