{"id":26844,"date":"2018-10-30T16:12:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T20:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=26844"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:57:14","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:57:14","slug":"motion-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=26844","title":{"rendered":"Stopping arthritis before it starts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Carolina researchers are using 3D technology to help fitness hobbyists and college athletes avoid or recover from knee injuries.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"ast-oembed-container \" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Stopping arthritis before it starts\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/e38UxADD8Ag?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div class=\"content\">\n<div class=\"has-content-area\">\n<div class=\"pf-content\">\n<p>When you think of motion capture technology, you might think of the movie magic that brought <em>Jurassic World<\/em> to life or made <em>Avatar<\/em> a box office hit.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s not the only way to use motion capture.<\/p>\n<p>Carolina researchers are using the same technology to help everyone from fitness hobbyists to college athletes avoid or recover from knee injuries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think a lot of people don\u2019t realize that musculoskeletal conditions cause more disability in our country than many other disease categories,\u201d Brian Pietrosimone, a core faculty member in the MOTION Science Institute. \u201cWe\u2019re interested in helping prevent injuries from occurring, but also in how we can actually keep people moving when they have some musculoskeletal injury or condition.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The institute looks a little bit like a movie set. Ten cameras line the walls, ready to record motion from every angle.<\/p>\n<p>As a patient walks and jumps across the room wearing dozens of tiny sensors, the cameras collect the data they need to build a 3D model of the patient\u2019s movement.<\/p>\n<p>Pietrosimone, an associate professor in the <a href=\"https:\/\/exss.unc.edu\/\">College of Arts &amp; Sciences\u2019<\/a> exercise and sport science department, uses the data to explore whether an individual is at risk for knee injury or arthritis: does his knee collapse inward when he lands from a jump? Does one leg take on more weight than the other? The lab then looks at whether these movements match up with early breakdown of knee tissues.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not the only way the lab collects its data. They\u2019re also using a treadmill with two separate tracks \u2014 one for each leg \u2014 with built-in force plates to capture both motion and stepping force. Pietrosimone and his team can use this information to determine whether a patient is walking unevenly, which often happens after a patient experiences an ACL tear or another severe knee injury.<\/p>\n<p>The team also uses ultrasound and MRI machines to look for acute changes in cartilage size and composition to recommend ways for patients to prevent long-term issues such as arthritis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the problems with arthritis is that you normally find out that you have it based on an X-ray, and that means that the bones have already changed shape and there\u2019s really nothing you can do at that point,\u201d he said. \u201cThe hard part is trying to find ways to see if the tissue is changing prior to the patient developing those structural changes. That\u2019s really what we want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For athletes and others who have experienced a knee injury, assessing for harmful joint changes early can help slow down or stop the progression of arthritis altogether. And for those who already have arthritis, Pietrosimone and his team are looking at ways to optimize rehabilitation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis condition can stop people from doing activities in daily life, so we\u2019re looking at ways that we can improve their function in things like walking up and down the stairs, getting up from a chair or getting in and out of a car,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Kyle Wallace, a study coordinator in the lab, has experienced the effects of knee pain personally after incurring several injuries and reconstructive surgeries as an athlete. While he was an undergraduate at Carolina, Wallace joined the lab as a volunteer and later returned to work with the team full-time after he graduated in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was an athlete in high school, so that\u2019s how I got interested in sports medicine,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cI had an affinity for medicine and helping, so the two worlds collided at UNC, and I was able to find a great research lab and team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His experience working in the lab has affirmed an interest in sports medicine, which he plans to explore further in medical school. For now, Wallace and Pietrosimone share the goal of keeping people moving.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cArthritis is a disease that we don\u2019t have a cure for right now, and it\u2019s a very debilitating disease as it is,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cIt affects everything from walking and running to sleeping and standing, which affects your entire life. So we want to do our best to alleviate that burden.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><span class=\"author-name\">Story by Emilie Poplett and video by Johnny Andrews, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unc.edu\/discover\/stopping-arthritis-before-it-starts\/\">University Communications<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carolina researchers are using 3D technology to help fitness hobbyists and college athletes avoid or recover from knee injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":26846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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