Simbios Talk by Jeffrey Reinbolt, University of Florida, Jan 17, 2006

Title: Patient-Specific Dynamic Modeling to Predict Functional Outcomes

Abstract:
Movement related disorders involve treatments (e.g., corrective surgeries, rehabilitation) characterized by variable outcomes as a result of subjective decisions based on qualitative analyses using a one-size-fits-all healthcare approach. Imagine the benefit to the healthcare provider and, more importantly, the patient, if certain clinical parameters may be evaluated pre-treatment in order to predict the post-treatment outcome. Using a patient-specific healthcare approach, movement related disorders may be treated with reliable outcomes as a result of objective decisions based on quantitative analyses.

The specific objective of the current work is to develop a four-phase optimization approach to identify patient-specific model parameters and utilize the calibrated model to predict functional outcome. Phase 1 identifies joint parameters describing the position and orientation of each joint within adjacent body segments. Phase 2 identifies inertial parameters defining mass, centers of mass, and moments of inertia for each body segment. Phase 3 identifies control parameters representing principal components of torque inherent in different walking movements. Phase 4 identifies motion and ground reaction parameters portraying the predicted movement. T his work comprises a computational framework to create and apply patient-specific models to predict clinically significant outcomes.