What Do We Do?

Declines in physical function and activity associated with aging and bone and joint diseases such as hip and knee osteoarthritis (OA), greatly impair mobility and quality of life for millions of individuals. Despite their pervasiveness, declines in mobility are amenable to prevention and rehabilitation if we can better understand the underlying mechanisms and advance therapeutic interventions appropriately. By studying human movement, we can investigate how bones and muscles work together to control functional movements, how age, sex and symptoms such as pain can impair the control of these movements, and how rehabilitation interventions tailored to these impairments affect mobility and quality of life. Program outcomes will include improved fundamental knowledge underlying movement disorders and tailored rehabilitation strategies, while simultaneously providing parameters to help identify patients most likely to benefit from targeted rehabilitation programs or surgical intervention.

The Dynamics of Human Motion Laboratory

The Dynamics of Human Motion Laboratory in the School of Physiotherapy at Dalhousie University has been well-established at Dalhousie for over a decade but has recently undergone renovations to support new state-of-the-art motion capture and imaging equipment to support and advance musculoskeletal health, joint function and clinical orthopaedic research. Our work focuses on clinical biomechanics and rehabilitation research using human movement analysis methods in collaboration with the School of Biomedical Engineering. This multi-disciplinary environment creates a unique opportunity to merge the skillsets and diverse perspectives of clinical students, research trainees and research personnel that helps fuel our research directions and innovations!

Since joining the Dynamics of Human Motion Laboratory, we have outfitted it with several new pieces of equipment and technology for studying human movement thanks to the Canadian Foundation for Innovation John R. Evans Leadership Fund Opportunity, the Faculty of Health at Dalhousie University, and the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation!