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AWeSOME Research Laboratory Stephen M. Cain, Ph.D.
Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Upper extremity biomechanics

Upper extremity biomechanics

Our work in using wearable sensors for quantifying and understanding upper extremity biomechanics is currently focused in two areas: 1) examining the relationships between upper extremity function of breast cancer patients during everyday life, radiation dose, and surgical approaches to breast reconstruction, and 2) determining the association between daily arm use and the progression of rotator cuff pathology and pain in manual wheelchair users. We are developing new algorithms and approaches that utilize data from wearable inertial sensors to estimate shoulder and elbow angles in the real world and exploring how new ways of looking at the data can provide information about arm use and movement quality.

The example figures below illustrate our approach for quantifying arm use and movement quality in breast cancer patients and in manual wheelchair users.

Example data and calculated measures for a reaching task comparing a breast cancer patient to a matched healthy control
A representative participant performed unilateral reaches into a cupboard using both arms, one at a time. A: Visualization of the primary outcome measures: wrist height (h wrist) upper arm angle (θ U) and forearm angle (θ F). B: During a unilateral reaching task, the raw 3-D linear acceleration and angular velocity of the forearm (a F, ω F) and upper arm (a U, ω U) were collected. C: Kinematic variables collected from the raw data were upward wrist velocity (V wrist), (h wrist), (θ U) and (θ F). D: A novel angle-angle-position plot that reveals manual asymmetry in terms of linearity for two different participants.
Sample data illustrating arm kinematics estimated from arm-worn inertial sensors.
Using only measurements from wrist and upper arm mounted accelerometers, we can estimate meaningful measurements of kinematics (wrist height and arm posture) to help quantify and understand arm use during daily life.