Ana Witkowski / Dr. Bostrom Week 8

 This summer has gone by so fast! This week was mostly just wrapping up the summer. I went and saw a little bit more of the mouse gait analysis and acclimation. Learning how to acclimate the mice for the gait analysis is super important for the consistency of the data, as mice that haven’t been acclimatized to the treadmill have a much wider spread and learning curve over the experiment. We learned how the mice get tire after about a minute of running, even if you spread that minute out over a couple bouts of running, which was super important for the next couple days of acclimation. 

I also got the opportunity this week to shadow in the Gait and Motion Analysis lab for a case. I have never seen the human gait analysis before, so I was immensely grateful for this opportunity! I spent the afternoon learning about the cameras and the calibration, watching a full PT exam, and then watching a gait analysis videotaping. There are 14 cameras, 4 force plates, and so many reflective stickers involved with the full gait analysis. The PT exam gathers the flexibility and strength data that is essential to interpret the results from the cameras. One exam takes upwards of 3 hours! It can take even longer if the patient has braces as well, as they would like to capture all the forms of gait they can. I also learned a bit about insurance and the difficulties with that to pay for the necessary gait analysis for certain medical conditions. Much of the gait analysis is not covered by the insurance as most consider it not medically necessary, unless recovering from or preparing for a surgery. This makes getting data difficult and it is hard to track gait changes over time. 

I am grateful for the summer immersion experience for enabling me to shadow many people over the course of the summer. I will miss it! Thanks to everyone for making this possible. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ellen Brooks/Dr. Robert Marx - Week 1

One action packed week complete already! The first few days of this week were filled with orientation meetings, introductions to Dr. Marx and his clinical team, and tours of the research facilities.  On Monday, I started shadowing Dr. Marx, his resident Dr. Braum, and his PA, Joe, through clinical rotations. As a person that has been in the patients chair many times, it is fascinating to see the doctor-patient interaction from the other side and to start to notice how the Dr. Marx is able to connect abnormalities in flexibility and gait to possible diagnoses.  I continued my shadowing of Dr. Marx late in the week in the Operating Room. Here I observed two total knee replacements, a removal of hardware from a previous, complicated ACL repair surgery, and an ACL surgery. The ACL surgery which I observed will be included in an on going research project to determine the optimal graft type (hamstring, or patellar tendon) for ACL repair and the benefit of additional stabilization of...
Read more

Marysol Chu / week 8

  It’s hard to believe that summer immersion has come to an end.     The past two months were extremely valuable in expanding my knowledge of the clinical aspect of my research. I was able to build relationships with clinicians in the field actively working on clinical trials and allowed me to interact with patients and identify needs that still exist despite all the advancements that have been made in medicine.     I could not have asked for a better clinician to shadow throughout the summer. Dr. Gomez made sure I saw as much as I could not just within bone marrow transplant but with other clinicians in the hematology/oncology department. I remember the first couple of weeks were emotionally challenging because of the severity of the complications that some of the patients experienced. It was very difficult for me to see them and their families struggling but at the same time I could see the medical team fighting and doing everything they could for the patient....
Read more