Kinetisense Newsletter
Version 7 , April 2022
The Objectivity for Efficiency Trade-Off
Whether you are a practitioner or a trainer, your time is incredibly valuable. The less time that is spent going through an assessment, the more time there is to make a positive impact by treating or training. Unfortunately, although there is an important need for tests and screens to evaluate function, many of these “screens” are time-consuming and lack efficiency. This lack of efficiency places the practitioner/trainer in a difficult predicament, and they often choose to not assess the function of their patient/client at all or they skip valuable steps in the flowchart.
When a functional movement assessment is efficient and comprehensive, the practitioner/trainer is able to spend more time in the treatment process. With the Kinetisense Advanced Movement Screen (KAMS), you will be able to acquire comprehensive functional movement data that will give insight into any dysfunctional patterns that may be occurring. The improvements and changes in your patient/client’s movement functionality are also easy to obtain with reassessment.
KAMS is an efficient and objective screen that allows for time to be spent on the training, rehabilitation, and education of the patient/client. The data from the KAMS screen provides insightful information on functional movement and compensatory movement patterns and gives the patient/client a chance to engage in the assessment, training, and rehab process. There no longer needs to be a trade-off between objectivity and efficiency, and this will improve the quality of care and result in a better experience for both the patient/client and the practitioner/trainer.
New V6 Cervical ROM Protocol
Along with the new version 6 update, Kinetisense has made changes to the cervical range of motion protocol. In order to obtain accurate data, it is crucial that the patient is properly positioned. For cervical range of motion assessments, the patient should be seated approximately 3 feet from the camera. Distance can easily be gauged by starting close to the camera (where the distance indicator is red) and then moving backwards until the distance indicator turns green.
With the left shoulder facing the camera, perform neck flexion and extension. For neck rotation, the patient should sit at a slight angle (turned 20-30 degrees) in relation to the camera. Positioning for neck lateral flexion and extension has not been changed.
Please refer to the Diamond user manual on page 18.
Neck Flexion
Neck Extension
Cervical Rotation Left
Cervical Rotation Right
Will my assessments be safe?
The primary goal of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is to keep patients’ protected health information (PHI) safe and secure, whether it exists in a physical or electronic form. Kinetisense is HIPAA compliant and abides by HIPAA regulations.
Your Information and Privacy
By using our services, you are entering confidential personal information. You retain full ownership of your information. We do not claim ownership of any of it. These terms do not grant us any rights to your information or intellectual property except for the limited rights that are needed to run the services, as explained below.
We may need your permission to do things you ask us to do with your information (i.e., hosting your data). This also includes design choices we make to technically administer our services (i.e., how we redundantly backup data to keep it safe). You give us the permissions we need to provide the services. This permission also extends to trusted third parties we work with to provide the services (i.e., Microsoft, our hosting company which provides our storage space).
Adjusting Screen Display Resolution or Magnification for Ease of Viewing
(Originally published by IT Solutions)
By default, most systems come with displays set for “optimal” viewing, but that doesn’t mean it’s optimal for everyone. If the elements on your screen appear too small for comfortable viewing, or conversely you would like screen elements smaller to fit more on the screen, it is easy to tweak your display settings. There are other ways to adjust the size of some elements. More about that later.
Note that while displays may offer a variety of resolution options, that doesn’t mean they will perform well at all settings. If you set your display to an unsupported resolution, your screen may go black for a few seconds (Mac and PC). Then, it will default to a resolution it can support (usually your previous resolution). Accept that as a sign the resolution you selected won’t work with your current system/monitor configuration.
Changing Screen Display Resolution, Windows 10 Machines:
- Access Screen Resolution options by typing Display Settings in the search bar next to the Windows icon in the lower left of your display.
- In the Display Settings window, under Scale and Layout, you can adjust screen resolution (pixels per inch) and/or display magnification (the size of text, apps, and other items) either up or down. The best option depends on the situation.
- If the box under Screen Resolution includes the notation “(Recommended),” then changing this setting may cause issues with the display. Try changing the setting under Magnification instead (to 125% if you want to enlarge items on your screen, for example).
- If the Screen resolution does not say “Recommended,” or if increasing/decreasing the Magnification causes problems, change screen resolution and keep the display magnification set to 100%.
Reference
https://www.itsolutions-inc.com/news-and-training/article/tech-tip-adjusting-screen-display-resolution
Masters Student in Rehabilitation Sciences Completes Her Thesis Using Kinetisense
Emmanuella “Ella” Osuji is currently a Research Assistant for the Tele-Rehab 2.0 project with the University of Alberta. We are excited to share her recently completed thesis titled ‘Pilot Study to Enhance the Repeatability, Validity and Reliability of Traditional Observational Falls Risk Assessments by Incorporating Markerless Motion Capture Technology’.
◊ Background Information and Summary
Face-to-face interactions became particularly difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic, and there were very few risk of fall assessments that could be done online and objectively. Ella’s goal was to legitimize technology so that rural populations could get access to examinations and timely rehabilitation. This would ensure that all patients have equal access to healthcare services. It would also reduce the overall cost to healthcare system by eliminating the need for healthcare staff to travel to rural locations to conduct assessments. The primary aim of her study was “to determine which tasks from the Berg Balance Scale (BBS) can be consistently measured using a markerless motion capture technology and define what kinetic parameters from this technology are most useful to define a construct for risk of falling.”
Kinetisense’s Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) ranged from 0.81 to 0.99. The test re-test reliability study validated Kinetisense’s accuracy and reliability/repeatability.
“The instrument is very sensitive and is able to capture miniscule variations and frequencies of joint movement even during static positions.”
Ella concluded that the pilot study “shows the capabilities of implementing markerless motion capture systems as part of remote fall risk assessments.”
“I would like to acknowledge the efforts of a handful of people without which this research would not have been completed successfully. Firstly, to the project team at Kinetisense Inc., for giving me the opportunity to carry out a pilot study on their Kinetisense software and having virtual meetings to put me through the abilities of the software thereby informing the decisions made during the course of this research study.”
The Influence of Age and Gender on ACL Injury Risk
Outside of biomechanical factors, age and gender are the most prevalent factors in identifying risk of ACL injury (1, 2, 3). Females, specifically around the age of 16, are at a significantly higher risk of ACL injury than males due to neuromuscular, anatomical, and hormonal differences (2, 4, 5, 6, 7).
Neuromuscular sequencing differences between males and females contribute to women having a higher risk of sustaining an ACL injury. In females, quadriceps activation during eccentric contraction is one of the largest differentiating factors, accompanied by muscle activation latencies and recruitment patterns (1). Early contraction of the quadriceps is the first cause of anterior tibial translation, which is when the tibia moves anteriorly and the femur remains in place, causing increased stress on the ACL (7). This indicates that females are quadriceps dominant, meaning that the anterior chain of the lower body activates before the posterior chain. In this case, the quadriceps are used to stop anterior tibial translation instead of the posterior chain of the lower body (7). Using the hamstrings complex in the posterior chain of the body has been shown to be more effective in stopping anterior tibial translation and provides more protection to the ACL (7).
Q-angle and pelvic width are some of the largest anatomical differences between males and females. Females have a larger pelvic width than males, which is linked to having a larger Q-angle (7). The Q-angle is formed by a line from the anterior superior iliac spine to the midline of the patella, and the midline of the patella to the tibial tubercle (7). Q-angle has a direct relationship to the quadriceps, as it represents the direction of the quadriceps muscle force vector in the frontal plane (8). A larger angle is thought to predispose individuals to injuries caused by abnormal quadriceps forces acting at the knee (8).
Taking these neuromuscular and anatomical factors into consideration, females also exhibit greater knee valgus motion during athletic movements than men. This increase in the incidence of dynamic knee valgus ultimately increases the risk of an ACL injury occurring (9, 10, 11).
References
- Prentice, W. E. (2014). Principles of athletic training: A competency-based approach. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
- Quatman, C. E., & Hewett, T. E. (2009). The anterior cruciate ligament injury controversy: Is “valgus collapse” a sex-specific mechanism? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 43(5). 328-335.
- Loudon, J. K., Jenkins, W., & Loudon, K. L. (1996). The relationship between static posture and ACL injury in female athletes. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, 24(2). 91-97.
- Hewett, T. E., Ford, K. R., Hoogenboom, B. J., & Myer, G. D. (2010). Understanding and preventing ACL injuries: Current biomechanical and epidemiologic considerations – update 2010. North American Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, 5(4), 234-251.
- Michaelidis, M. & Koumantakis, G. A. (2014). Effects of knee injury primary prevention programs on anterior cruciate ligament injury rates in female athletes in different sports: A systematic review. Physical Therapy in Sports, 15(2014), 200-210.
- Kagaya, Yoshinori, Fujii, Yasunari, Nishizono, H. (2015). Association between hip abductor function, rear-foot dynamic alignment, and dynamic knee valgus during single-leg squats and drop landings. Journal of Sports and Health Science, 4(2015). 182-187.
- Hirst, S. E., Armeau, E., & Parish, T. (2007). Recognizing anterior cruciate ligament tears in female athletes: What every primary care practitioner should know. The Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice, 5(1).
- Daneshmandi, H., Saki, F., Shahheidari, S., & Khoori, A. (2011). Lower extremity malalignment and its linear relation with q-angle in female athletes. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 15(2011), 3349-3354.
- LaBella, C. R., Hennrikus, W. & Hewett, T. E. (2014). Anterior cruciate ligament injuries: Diagnosis, treatment and prevention. The American Academy of Pediatrics, 133,(5), 1437-1450.
- Mitani, Y. (2017). Gender-related differences in lower limb alignment, range of motion, and the incidence of sports injuries in Japanese university athletes. The Journal of Physical Therapy Science, 29(1), 12-15.
- Mohamed, E. E., Useh, U., & Mtshali, B. F. (2012). Q-angle, pelvic width, and intercondylar notch width as predictors of knee injuries in women soccer players in South Africa. African Health Sciences, 12(2), 174-180.
