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Joint Protection Self-management Program for Hand & Shoulder Arthritis Patients (Presentation)

Introduced & Presented By: Dr. Joy C. MacDermid, Dimitra Pouliopoulou

Joint protection programs have shown their effectiveness through various research in resulting in temporary relief of pain due to reduced loading and are expected to reduce the progression of arthritis and deformity through reduced loading over the longer term. This project aims to develop an interactive e-learning joint protection program to help individuals with hand and shoulder arthritis learn strategies to protect their joints, reduce strain, and make daily tasks easier. The program is delivered through a series of videos designed by the Principal Investigator (PI) and her research team, offering evidence-based guidance to support joint health.

Presenter Information

Dimitra Pouliopoulou is a PhD candidate specializing in developing a Joint Protection Program for individuals with hand arthritis. She is a registered physiotherapist in Greece and the UK, with two master's degrees in Sports and Exercise Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology. Her research focuses on combining clinical expertise with patient co-design research to create an evidence-based, technology-enabled Joint Protection Program for patients with hand osteoarthritis. Dimitra is part of ÉîÒ¹¸£ÀûÕ¾'s Bone and Joint Institute Collaborative Specialization in Musculoskeletal Health Research program and serves as the Co-Chair of the Trainee Leadership Committee. She is also the President of the Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Graduate Student Society (HRSGSS) and contributes to social media management for the Roth | McFarlane Hand and Upper Limb Centre (HULC).

Low-cost Wearable Device for Long-term Monitoring of Knee Brace Active Wear Time (Presentation)

Introduced & Presented By: Dr. Trevor Birmingham, Dr. Harvi Hart, Jamie Kim

Knee osteoarthritis (OA) limits one’s physical activities and increases the risk of vascular events and death. Knee braces have the potential to help people with this condition, however, their effectiveness remains unclear. This project aims to identify their effectiveness by accurately monitoring their active wear time (adherence) by developing custom wearable devices that can be deployed in clinical studies.

In collaboration with clinical partners, Fowler Kennedy Sport Medicine Clinic, St. Joe’s Rheumatology Centre & Primary Care Diabetes Support Program, MSK Rapid Access Clinics, and community physiotherapy clinics, FHS MSK-IF has been assembling the wearable devices to deploy them for the CIHR-funded pilot feasibility randomized clinical trial commencing in the Wolf Orthopaedic Biomechanics Lab. A user-friendly interface has also been developed to optimize the device initialization and data handling process and conduct preliminary data analysis.

Presenter Information

Dr. Harvi Hart is an Assistant Professor of Biomechanics in the Department of Kinesiology at Michigan State University. She is also an Adjunct Research Professor at the School of Physiotherapy at ÉîÒ¹¸£ÀûÕ¾. Her research focuses on improving mobility and quality of life for individuals with knee conditions and diseases by understanding the underlying mechanisms and developing targeted treatments.

Jamie Kim is a Digital Design Specialist in the Faculty of Health Sciences at ÉîÒ¹¸£ÀûÕ¾. She serves as a technical consultant on FHS MSK-IF projects, developing innovative digital solutions and collaborating with researchers and clinicians to advance musculoskeletal health research.

Designing a 3D Pain Assessment Application (Presentation)

Presenter: Dr. Alison Rushton, Jamie Kim, Monica Lin

The purpose of this project is to develop a patient-facing application to enable an extended dataset for existing musculoskeletal databases/registries to collect a comprehensive range of pain/symptom assessment data to enable in-depth understanding of the characteristics of pain/symptoms for research. Detailed assessment data enables greater understanding of a patient’s experience, trajectory over time, and outcomes. For example, three-dimensional symptom mapping with the opportunity to shade more heavily where symptoms are stronger is an illustration of what characteristics we can collect in an extended dataset. The characteristics to be collected are being detailed through ongoing collaboration with patient partners and musculoskeletal researchers across upper limb, lower limb and spine research teams.

AI-assisted Approach for Writing Lay Summarizing Tool (Presentation #1, Presentation #2)

Presenters: Dr. Joy C. MacDermid, James Shelley

To support faculty members and research labs in creatively their sharing research with various audiences and knowledge users, the Faculty of Health Sciences is developing an internal AI prototype that creates automated lay-person summaries of research papers. The tool is adaptive from the ground up, using interchangeable templates that can be customized for unique contexts, audiences, disciplines and use cases. This experimental resource is in open internal beta and is designed around principles of customizability, scalability, and usability.

To try out this tool, please refer to the instructions in this document.

Measuring Temperature and Muscle Contraction in Custom Made Orthotic Devices (Presentation)

Presenter: Dr. Mike Szekeres

One of the standards of care for treating upper limb injuries is to prescribe a removable splint or orthosis, which help fractures and other soft tissues to heal and to decrease pain and inflammation.

A multidisciplinary team is working with clinical partners at the Hand and Upper Limb Centre (located at St. Joseph’s Health Care), patient partners, and the FHS MSK-IF to develop a wearable device that measures splint adherence through temperature and surface electromyography (sEMG) to understand the relationship between splinting (immobilization) and tissue healing and other important outcomes.

Virtual Bone Health Program for Fragility Fracture (Presentation)

Presenter: Dr. Tina Ziebart

A multidisciplinary team is working with clinical partners at the Hand and Upper Limb Centre and Community Rehab Clinics, patient partners, and the FHS MSK-IF to refine a virtual post first-fragility fracture bone health program developed at the Hand and Upper Limb Centre with the goal of making it suitable for scale-up to middle-aged adults with upper extremity or spinal fragility fractures. The program focuses on improving bone health through changes in diet, exercise, safe movement, medication, and falls prevention strategies.