RICHMOND, Va. -- There's a theatrical action that can't be found on a theater stage at Virginia Commonwealth University. Instead, it's found at VCU's College of Health Professions, in Dr. Peter Pidcoe's Engineering and Biomechanics Lab.
Tuesday morning, Morgan Boyle, a physical therapy student at VCU, suited up in the lab, wearing sensors from head to foot.
When imaged by dozens of cameras in the lab, the sensors create a computer image of Boyle's skeleton that is meant to match her dimensions.
During a study session with Dr. Pidcoe and Zachary Moore, a Master's student who helped build the computer system, Boyle was tasked with coming face to face with a red-tipped "robot arm," a gray piece of machinery with a red end that can move at the click of a button.
Boyle was tested by trying to remember where the red-tipped point was in front of her.
She'd then removed her hand from a button, which would fog a pair of goggles she wore, simultaneously moving the robot's arm.
The goal is to remember where the red-tipped robot arm was before it moved, pointing with her finger where she thought it was.
"I felt like I was dead on," Boyle said. "I felt like I was reaching right for it. I thought I was going to be able to hit it before it moved, so that was a bit of a surprise."
For Moore, the study is meant to help track the changes in visualization and hand-eye coordination in subjects who experienced a concussion.
"They tended to go a litter further out or a little more to the left of their target, whereas people who without a concussion were overall a little more accurate around the target," Moore explained.
According to data provided by VCU, about one in every four Americans will experience a concussion in their lifetime.
"When someone gets a concussion, their head movements and eye relationship to the head movement is altered, and they often end up with motion sickness, motion cues, difficulty moving around their environment because the visual elements are skewed in some way," Pidcoe said. "The residual effects of a concussion can be long-term. They're not just weeks or months. They can be years."
Pidcoe said, in some ways, this study is a first of its kind, mentioning new technologies like those found in some football helmets often try to pinpoint the potential for a concussion, not the effects.
"We've not looked at three-dimensional targeting like this before, to see how they've changed, how the concussion has changed their ability to understand their environment," Pidcoe said.
Researchers the information gathered by their study can help give physical therapists a leg-up when working with concussed patients.
"There's a potential for this to turn into a gamified solution for them to recover faster," Pidcoe said.
"Everyone who has a concussion, it affects everyone differently," Moore said. "So having a way to assess numerically if someone is improving or not or what's working for them will be of great importance to the physical therapy world, so they can help their specific therapy needs match to the person."
People interested in learning more about the study can contact team members at mooreze@vcu.edu for more information.
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