From the Mailbag

Hordes of loyal fans of this site (OK, just Branson) want to know why the hell I am in South Dakota on a data collection run when there are plenty of folks to get to jump around for me for one of my ACL studies at UNC.

Well, this data collection run has nothing to do with my main PhD research.

Born out of an attempt to secure some funding, I got involved in a project with Richard Henderson in Orthopedics (himself an MD/PhD). He is more of a physiologist by training and is concerned with pediatric populations.

As it happens, kids with developmental ailments such as CP get placed in standers for various intervals. This allows them to weight-bear (among other things), and the thought is that this promotes bone mineral deposition. However, nobody has actually proven this.

My end of the deal is to coordinate the construction of, implementation of, and subsequent data collection with foot plates which contain load cells that measure axial loading. These foot plates are placed in the standers and measure the force "seen" by the child over time... does it vary from start to finish? Do the kids favor one leg over another? Are they experiencing much force or are they at too great an angle and/or are they strapped in too tightly and/or are they leaning on the supports and straps too much?

Nobody really knows... other folks are handling other aspects (DEXA scans, etc.), but being the BME biomechanist that I am, I drew this duty. The reason I am in South Dakota is because there is a residential facility for these types of kids here that is very willing to work with us (and are a bunch of nice people to boot).

Unfortunately, the stipend support thing didn't work out, but at least I got a free flight, hotel, and a per diem. And it is still damn cold... it was -11 degrees fahrenheit Monday morning as I drove to the Children's Center. There's not much to do either, except dine at any one of the dozens of chain restaurants.

Well, at least I get the excitement of the fulfillment of a research design and data collection...