Research...

The Gait Laboratory staff has been comprised of researchers, clinical collaborators, and post-doctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students. Researchers are not only from the Department of Orthopedic Surgery but also from the Departments of Anatomy, Biochemistry, Rheumatology, and others. The Gait Laboratory also works closely with members of the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Motion Analysis Lab of Stanford University in California, the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), as well as, with researchers and clinicians at Northwestern University.

The Gait Laboratory has covered a wide array of research topics such as hip and knee osteoarthritis (OA) progression, total hip and total knee replacements, foot orthotics, high tibial osteotomy (HTO), lower extremity joint degeneration, bone density and joint loading, and functional adaptations in anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction recipients. The Gait Laboratory has also been involved in the development of software to facilitate the analysis and processing of functional measurements. The software has included the development of analytical models of the knee and hip joints and the prediction of muscle forces during dynamic activity. A parametric muscle model of the hip joint forces during dynamic activities was developed to better understand how the forces on the hip are related to loosening of total hip replacements as well as to understand the role of loading and bone in the progression of hip osteoarthritis. In addition, much work has been devoted to understanding the role of loading in the progression of knee osteoarthritis and how altering these loads can affect the rate of osteoarthritis progression.

Over the years, different marker placement methods have been used to acquire data in the Gait Laboratory. An alternative marker placement technique being used in the Gait Lab, in addition to the six-marker method (pictured below), is the
Point-Cluster technique (PCT). Currently, this technology is being utilized by the Tribology Laboratory group to more accurately describe the motion of artificial knee joints during functional activities.