Speaker: Dr. Glen Lichtwark, The University of Queensland, Australia

Time: Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time

Learn about both the methods for and the effects of adjusting subject-specific muscle properties to represent muscle weakness and contracture in cerebral palsy. To register for the event, click here.

ABSTRACT

Lower limb muscles in children with cerebral palsy (CP) are as much as 30-50% weaker and up to 2-3 times more stiff (passively) than typically developed (TD) muscle. As such, the interplay between muscle dynamics and the subsequent movement will be very different in this population. Simulation studies up until this point have primarily focused on using abnormal movement patterns to examine variations in muscle coordination without fully considering the impact of changed structural and mechanical muscle-tendon properties. This presentation will focus on work where we have a) developed a method to adjust subject-specific muscle properties in an OpenSim model to adequately represent muscle weakness and contracture in CP as well as more accurately represent TD muscle; and b) determined the influence of using both TD and CP muscle models on the predicted muscle function and activation patterns during both normal (TD) and equinus (CP) gait.