Researchers Are Tripping People on Treadmills for a Really Good Cause – runnersworld.com
Researchers Are Tripping People on Treadmills for a Really Good Cause runnersworld.com
Tripping on the treadmill has been the subject of many a “fails” video, but what if we were to tell you that some academic researchers are purposely trying to get …
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- Researchers from Vanderbilt University are tripping participants on a treadmill to gain better understanding of the stumble reflex that prevents them from falling.
- They intend to use this data from their series of to improve current prosthetics and reduce falls in above-knee amputees.
Tripping on the treadmill has been the subject of many a “fails” video, but what if we were to tell you that some academic researchers are purposely trying to get people to wipe out?
Don’t worry—it’s all for a good cause. Researchers from Vanderbilt University have developed a treadmill that will purposely trip anyone on it, so they can get a better understanding of the stumble reflex. They hope to use that data to develop a better prosthetic limb for people with transfemoral (above-knee) amputations.
Here’s what’s going on: When people who do not require a prosthetic trip on an obstacle, their body reflexively responds to that in a few ways, depending on the condition of the situation. These involuntary reflexes allow them to regain their balance and right themselves so they do not fall completely.
So, researchers built a treadmill that forced subjects to trip—and correct themselves—to collect data on how the body responds to different situations. Then, they hope to translate that to improve how prosthetics handle such stumbles.
Watch: Runners attempt to maintain Eliud Kipchoge’s world record-setting marathon pace on a treadmill.
In the , which was published in the Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, the researchers took seven healthy subjects to test their stumble recovery in a total of 190 tripping situations.
“The overarching goal is to program a powered knee to recover like the healthy human limb does,” study author Maura Eveld, Ph.D.(c), at Vanderbuilt told Runner’s World. “To get at that problem, we needed a way to systematically trip people.”
To do this, researchers designed a tripping treadmill, where a 35-pound block enters the belt, causing the person to trip and subconsciously employ their recovery tactics to avoid a fall and keep walking. Then, they collected data using infrared sensors for motion capture on the movements the person made to do so.
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It was vital to make sure the users on the treadmill did not anticipate the fall—meaning that they had no sensory cues that the obstacle was coming—so they would employ their natural stumble reflex. To prevent them from seeing or hearing the block, they wore goggles to block their lower vision field and listened to white noise under noise-canceling headphones. And, as a distraction technique, participants count backward from a given number by seven, explained Eveld.
Using the data that was collected, researchers will design a powered knee that is modeled from the stumble reflexes they analyzed as a way to improve prosthetic limbs and prevent falls.
Next, researchers will use the treadmill they designed to test stumble recovery in the amputees who are using their own prosthetics to test how they fall. Eventually, they hope to bring all of this data together and test it in powered knee designs.