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And the Oscar goes
to..
a Cleveland Clinic
research scientist?
That’s right. Antonie J. van den Bogert, Ph.D., with the
Lerner Research Institute’s Biomedical Engineering Department, won an Academy
Award earlier this year for his technical work in developing motion capture
software, which is being used by top Hollywood producers to create
three-dimensional animation based on human movements. His software helped to
build some of the animated characters in blockbuster movies such as “The Lord
of the Rings” trilogy and “I-Robot.”
So what does all of this have to do with health care?
Plenty. Knee damage is the most common injury for high school, college and
professional athletes. While advances in orthopedic surgery can repair knee
injuries, most athletes who have had such injuries suffer osteoarthritis when
they are only in their 30s or 40s (most people don’t get arthritis until their
70s).
What’s more, women athletes are five times more likely to
injure their knees, but no one knows why. Dr. van den Bogert’s research aims
to find the answer to that question and to determine whether new athletic
techniques can be developed to help athletes reduce or prevent knee injuries.
Dr. van den Bogert recently brought in 10 men and 10 women
college basketball athletes to record their common movements with special,
high-speed cameras. The athletes wore tiny balls that acted as markers on their
bodies, tracking their motions. The balls reflect light back to the camera,
creating a three-dimensional, high contrast image. All of this information is
then fed into the motion capture software.
“We created a computer model of each person and that
computer model performs the same movements as the athlete,” says Dr. van den
Bogert. “Because the computer model moves the same way that the athlete does,
we can do hundreds of experiments on the computer model rather than on the
person.” For example, by manipulating the computer model, researchers can find
out what kind of knee stress is produced when the feet are placed in different
positions.
“We think that these knee injuries occur in athletes not
because they run and jump along, but because their movement is poorly
controlled,” he says. “We’re hoping that our computer simulations will
give us insights about improving the control of an athlete’s movements to see
whether, in the future, we can reduce the propensity for injury.”
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