Andy Kerr

University of Strathclyde · Department of Biomedical Engineering

Objectives: Restoring independence in the sit-to-stand (STS) task is an important objective for stroke rehabilitation. It is not known if a particular intervention, strength training or therapy focused on movement performance is more likely to improve STS recovery. This study aimed to compare STS outcomes from functional strength training, movemen...

Background Recovery of the sit-to-stand (StS) movement early after stroke could be improved by targeting physical therapy at the underlying movement deficits in those people likely to respond. Aim To compare the movement characteristics of successful and failed StS movements in people early after stroke and identify which characteristics change in...

Background Physical activity is recommended after stroke but levels for stroke survivors are typically low. The use of indoor recumbent cycling, delivered through local government leisure facilities, may increase access to exercise among stroke survivors. Objective This study aimed to evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of an indoor cycling...

Background: The prevalence of disabling conditions is increasing globally. Rehabilitation improves function and quality of life across many conditions, particularly when applied intensively. The limited workforce, however, cannot deliver evidence-based intensive rehabilitation. By providing individuals with the tools for self- rehabilitation, techn...

BACKGROUND Rehabilitation improves post-stroke recovery, with greater effect for many when applied intensively within enriched environments. The failure of healthcare providers to achieve minimum recommendations for rehabilitation motivated the development of a technology enriched rehabilitation gym (TERG) that enables individuals, under supervisio...

Movement sonification is emerging as a useful tool for rehabilitation, with increasing evidence in support of its use. To create such a system requires component considerations outside of typical sonification design choices, such as the dimension of movement to sonify, section of anatomy to track, and methodology of motion capture. This review take...

Background: Walking, sit-to-stand (STS) and sit-to-walk (STW) are all considered important functional tasks in achieving independence after stroke. Despite knowledge that sensitive measurement of movement patterns is crucial to understanding neuromuscular restitution, there is surprisingly little information available about the detailed biomechanic...

Objective: To explore the experiences of stroke survivors and their carers of augmented arm rehabilitation including supported self-management in terms of its acceptability, appropriateness and relevance. Design: A qualitative design, nested within a larger, multi-centre randomized controlled feasibility trial that compared augmented arm rehabil...

Introduction The routine use of evidence-based upper limb rehabilitation interventions after stroke has the potential to improve function and increase independence. Two such interventions are Constraint Induced Movement Therapy and Robot Assisted Therapy. Despite evidence to support both interventions, their use within the National Health Service a...

Background Recovering independent walking is a priority for stroke survivors. Community walking requires speeds exceeding the average values typically achieved at discharge (0.7 m/s). To improve outcomes there is a need to clarify the factors associated with recovery of functional walking speeds. Research question Which biomechanical variables co...

Background: The sit-to-stand (StS) movement is a frequently performed task critical to independent living that is both difficult to perform and associated with falls in older populations. Consequently, the recovery of this movement through supervised practice is a priority during the rehabilitation of older people. Technology may enable self-practi...

Background: Stroke rehabilitation often uses the motor relearning concept that require patients to perform active practice of skill-specific training and to receive feedback. Treadmill training augmented with real-time visualisation feedback and functional electrical stimulation may have a beneficial synergistic effect on motor recovery. This stud...

Background Stroke is increasingly one of the main causes of impairment and disability. Contextual and empirical evidence demonstrate that, mainly due to service delivery constraints, but also due to a move toward personalized health care in the comfort of patients’ homes, more stroke survivors undergo rehabilitation at home with minimal or no super...

Background: Physical activity is recommended after stroke but levels for stroke survivors are typically low. The use of indoor recumbent cycling, delivered through local government leisure facilities, may increase access to exercise among stroke survivors. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of an indoor cyclin...

Purpose: Standing up, sitting down and walking require considerable effort and coordination, which are crucial indicators to rehabilitation (e.g. stroke), and in older populations may indicate the onset of frailty and physical and cognitive decline. Currently, there are few reports robustly quantifying sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit transitions in...

Study purpose: The purpose of the study was to understand whether treadmill walking (fixed and self-paced) exhibits sufficiently similar motor patterns to overground walking to justify its use as a rehabilitation modality in the recovery of normal walking function. The study compared the activity patterns of five lower-limb muscle groups (Hamstring...

While optical motion analysis systems can provide high-fidelity gait parameters, they are usually impractical for local clinics and home use, due to high cost, requirement for large space, and lack of portability. In this study, we focus on a cost-effective and portable, single-camera gait analysis solution, based on video acquisition with calibrat...

Undergraduate textbook introducing the study of human movement covering physiology, motor control, psychology, motor re-learning, motor development, measurement, ageing, physical activity, biomechanics, case studies and anatomy. Designed for physiotherapists but relevant to all students of human movement.

This paper proposes design and development of a low-cost electromyography (EMG) using Arduino micro-controller for home-based post-stroke rehabilitation. Time series plots of data gleaned from Arduino-based EMG at different instances of muscle activities exhibited a stochastic behavior which was proportional to the underlying muscle force. This beh...

While optical motion analysis systems can provide high-fidelity gait parameters, they are usually impractical for local clinics and home use, due to high cost, requirement for large space, and lack of portability. In this study, we focus on a cost-effective and portable, single-camera gait analysis solution, based on video acquisition with calibrat...

Introduction Objective measurements, such as those obtained within the gait laboratory, provide a powerful insight into the ambulatory condition of an individual, and may be used to help monitor and target rehabilitation efforts following lower-limb amputation or hemiplegia resulting from stroke. However, such systems require substantial resources,...

Background: Using technology in stroke rehabilitation is attractive. Devices such as robots or smartphones can help deliver evidence-based levels of practice intensity and automated feedback without additional labor costs. Currently, however, few technologies have been adopted into everyday rehabilitation. Objective: This project aimed to identify...

Background: Using technology in stroke rehabilitation is attractive. Devices such as robots or smartphones can help deliver evidence-based levels of practice intensity and automated feedback without additional labor costs. Currently, however, few technologies have been adopted into everyday rehabilitation. Objective: This project aimed to identi...

Objectives The sit to stand (STS) movement is key to independence and commonly affected by stroke. Repetitive practice is likely to improve STS ability during rehabilitation, however current practice levels are unknown. The objective of this study was simply to count the number of STS movements performed during the rehabilitation period of stroke p...

Step counting has long since been the fundamental backbone of physical activity monitoring. It offers the advantage of providing a powerful insight into the free-living behaviour of a person through their daily pattern of step accumulation, while also providing a step count - a simple single figure for each day that is clinically significant and re...

Background: Hesitation between moving from a sedentary posture (lying/sitting) to walking is a characteristic of mobility impaired individuals, as identified from laboratory studies. Knowing the extent to which this hesitation occurs during everyday life would benefit rehabilitation research. This study aimed to quantify this transition hesitation...

With increasing importance given to telerehabilitation, there is a growing need for accurate, low-cost, and portable motion capture systems that do not require specialist assessment venues. This paper proposes a novel framework for motion capture using only a single depth camera, which is portable and cost effective compared to most industry-standa...

Background Personal wearable activity trackers (eg Fitbit) allow free-living measurement of ambulatory activities however they lack the sensitivity to accurately capture the slow stepping of people with gait impairments. The US Department of Veterans Affairs, acknowledging the potential of activity trackers for lower-limb prosthetic rehabilitation,...

Stroke is a worldwide healthcare problem, which often causes long-term motor impairment, handicap, and disability. Optical motion analysis systems are commonly used for impairment assessment due to high accuracy. However, the requirement of equipment-heavy and large laboratory space together with operational expertise makes these systems impractica...

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Laboratory-based nonwearable motion analysis systems have significantly advanced with robust objective measurement of the limb motion, resulting in quantified, standardized, and reliable outcome measures compared with traditional, semisubjective, observational gait analysis. However, the requirement for large laboratory space and operational expert...

Gait analysis is often used as part of the rehabilitation program for post-stoke recovery assessment. Since current optical diagnostic and patient assessment tools tend to be expensive and not portable, this paper proposes a novel marker-based tracking system using a single depth camera which provides a cost-effective solution suitable for home and...

Objective: To describe and compare patterns of physical activity among stroke survivors during their hospital stay and community living with early supported discharge. Design: Observational cohort study of physical activity before and after early supported discharge. Setting: UK National Health Service stroke units and participants' homes. Pa...

Objectives: Recovery of independent ambulation after stroke is a major goal. However, which rehabilitation regimen best benefits each individual is unknown and decisions are currently made on a subjective basis. Predictors of response to specific therapies would guide the type of therapy most appropriate for each patient. Although lesion topograph...

Driven by recent advances in information and communications technology, tele-rehabilitation services based on multimedia processing are emerging. Gait analysis is common for many rehabilitation programs, being, for example, periodically performed in the post-stroke recovery assessment. Since current optical diagnostic and patient assessment tools t...

The aim of this project is to design and build a system to aid patients in their rehabilitation after suffering a stroke. A stroke is one of the most serious conditions that an individual can suffer from, and the rehabilitation is often a long and difficult process. For many with movement effects, the sit-to-stand exercise is an important step in r...

Timely provision of an ankle-foot orthosis (AFO) orthotist customized for individuals early after stroke can be problematic. To evaluate the efficacy of a therapist-made AFO (SWIFT Cast) for walking recovery. This was a randomized controlled, observer-blind trial. Participants (n = 105) were recruited 3 to 42 days poststroke. All received conventio...

Introduction: Patients in hospital stroke rehabilitation settings are known to be sedentary. Early supported discharge (ESD) is the preferred option for stroke survivors who are medically stable and can be rehabilitated at home. One possible benefit of ESD is increased intensity and frequency of physical activity through re-engagement with familiar...

Optical motion capture systems have been widely adopted for human motion analysis in stroke rehabilitation because of real-time processing and high-accuracy features. However, these systems require a large laboratory space and multiple cameras and thus can be expensive and not transportable. In this paper, we propose a portable, cheap, single-camer...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the predictive validity of simple gait-related dual-task (DT) tests in predicting falls in community-dwelling older adults. DESIGN: A validation cohort study with 6 months' follow-up. SETTING: General community. PARTICIPANTS: Independently ambulant community-dwelling adults (N=66) aged ≥65 years, with normal cognitive func...

Objective: To investigate the predictive validity of simple gait-related dual task tests in predicting falls in community-dwelling older adults. Design: A validation-cohort study with six months follow-up. Setting: General community. Participants: Sixty-six independently ambulant community-dwelling adults aged 65 years or older, with normal cogniti...

The best test to assess dual task (DT)-related falls' risk is not known. The aim of this study was to investigate differences between community-dwelling fallers and non-fallers on a variety of simple task combinations. Twenty-seven adults, aged 65 years or older, took part. Forty-eight DT tests and one triple task (TT) test were conducted. Fallers...

A simple and cost effective technique of video gait analysis applicable within rehabilitation clinics and clinical gait laboratories has been developed. The purpose of this study was to determine intra- and inter- rater reliability of kinematic and temporo-spatial gait parameters measured using the commercially available ProTrainer system (Sports M...

Gait-related dual task tests have been used to assess differences between fallers and non-fallers, without a thorough assessment of reliability. This study investigated the test-retest reliability of eight gait-related dual and one triple task tests in forty-four community-dwelling older adults (twenty with and twenty-four without a history of fall...

Background Moving from sitting to walking (STW) is a functional movement that is sufficiently demanding to reveal early mobility problems that may be masked in other tests (Kerr et al., 2007). Research to date has confirmed the inherent difficulty of the STW movement (Magnan et al., 1996); however, the technology used is limited to laboratory setti...

Moving from sitting to walking (STW) is a functional movement that is sufficiently demanding to reveal early mobility problems that may be masked in other tests (Kerr et al., 2007). Research to date has confirmed the inherent difficulty of the STW movement (Magnan et al., 1996); however, the technology used is limited to laboratory settings. Accele...

Background: Restoring movement fluency is a key focus for physical rehabilitation; it's measurement, however, lacks objectivity. The purpose of this study was to find whether measurable movement fluency variables differed between groups of adults with different movement abilities whilst performing the sit-to-walk (STW) movement. The movement fluen...

An ankle-foot cast may enable people to repeatedly practice walking with a more normal movement pattern early after stroke. To evaluate the clinical efficacy of using an ankle-foot cast [soft scotch ankle-foot (SWIFT) Cast] to enhance walking recovery and to find whether site of stroke lesion and/or baseline biomechanical characteristics predict re...

The sit to stand (STS) movement is commonly performed in daily life, and can be used as an indicator of activity. This study aimed to quantify the usual frequency and distribution of the STS movement performed by older adults in both home and rehabilitation settings. Three groups of older adults were recruited; healthy older adults living in the co...

Background. The recruitment pattern of lower limb muscles during cycling is known to alter because of changes in workload and seat height. The effect of foot/pedal position is not well understood but may be useful in the prevention and management of injury. Methods. Seven healthy female subjects participated in a study. Three-foot positions on the...

There is no consensus on which dual task (DT) test best assesses mobility or balance deficits in older adults. This study aimed to explore older adults' experiences and perceptions of dual tasking to identify DTs relevant to their everyday life and that they perceive as difficult or risky. Two gender-specific focus groups were conducted. Six males...

Background Poor performance on Dual Task (DT) tests has been identified as a risk factor for falls in older adults.1 There is no consensus on which DT combination best predicts falls.2 Moreover, there is a discrepancy between what older adults perceive as difficult and fall inducing DTs and DTs used in the literature.3AimsTo explore the feasibility...

Foot clearance is an important measurement variable in understanding trip falls. Current methods for measuring foot clearance are limited by their inability to capture multiple steps and confinement to a laboratory. Given that variation in this parameter is considered a factor in trip falling, it's measurement in the field over multiple steps would...