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. 




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