Wearable rehabilitation

Design and validation of wearable textile based sensors and actuator for rehabilitation after injury.

Koen Jongbloed

PhD Candidate

Functional Electrical Stimulation Shorts

Research and development of a technology for musculoskeletal rehabilitation in athletes and patients (patented). This technology, based on the use of electrical stimulation driven by motion sensing and AI, has been developed for patients with knee osteoarthritis and we are now looking to develop a second application, in elite athletes following sports injury. We evaluate the prototypes through work with elite athletes at the KNVB.

Smart Sock

Development of a smart sock to monitor tendon load in daily life for tendinopathy patients. (collaborator: Robert-Jan de Vos, Erasmus MC)

Finished Graduation projects

Achilles tendinopathy (AT) is a common injury, but we still don’t fully understand its causes. Research suggests that strain distribution, possibly linked to the twist of subtendons, plays a role in its progression. The graduation project of Rimke Beinema aimed to shed light on this by creating a computer model of the tendon, inspired by research from colleagues in Australia (Claudio Pizzolato and colleagues).
As is sometimes the case in the world of research, Rimke encountered the typical challenges of “help, my model doesn’t behave the way I expected.” Determined, she methodically conducted sensitivity analyses to understand her outcomes.
Rimke’s efforts yielded the insights that additional substructure details are needed for accurately predicting displacement behavior. Negative results are valuable outcomes in their own right, serving as guiding lights for the next steps (and students) in this development.