Musculoskeletal modelling of bio-mechanical loading in simulated gravity situations for rehabilitation programmes

Applications are invited for a fully-funded full-time 3-year University of Bath and European Space Agency co-funded PhD studentship to support and work in the Department for Health. The student will also be attached to our £10M CAMERA centre.

Biomechanical loading of the lower extremities is an important issue in any movement pattern, whether this is related to elderly gait, normal healthy people’s exercises, athletes’ technique or neurological and musculoskeletal pathologies and injuries. Loading of muscles and bones is important for bone and muscle development (or slowing down degradation).

While internal joint force and muscle moment analyses are reasonably common in sport activities like running, there is only limited information available on joint internal load in the rehabilitation context and especially when utilising body weight support systems or anti-gravity treadmill training. Further, these limitations extend to how muscle strength and different levels of gravity conditions affect ground reaction forces and internal joint forces during the rehabilitation programme. To further the understanding of these interactions, a simulation modelling approach is proposed.

European Space Agency, as a co-funder, is interested in rehabilitation from musculoskeletal degradation with a long term interest of understanding human body loading at lunar gravity.

The student will conduct their research under the supervision of Dr Aki Salo, Dr Dario Cazzola and Dr Steffi Colyer.

The overall aim of this project is to understand lower body internal loads during jumping, walking and running in simulated gravity situations. More specifically, we aim to create a novel biomechanical framework capable of i) profiling the lower limb internal stresses during rehabilitation/training exercises, and ii) informing the interaction between external loads, muscle strength and simulated gravity situations for rehabilitation/training programmes via computer simulation. Such understanding would benefit rehabilitative programmes of both the general population suffering from ability limitations and athletes/recreational population when recovering from injuries and illnesses. Further, this novel approach will allow the identification of musculoskeletal risk factors for safely performing specific rehabilitation/training exercises. This is the first step towards a personalised medicine approach that involves in vivo experimental tests and advanced biomechanical methods, such as musculoskeletal modelling and computer simulation.

The Successful Candidate should:
1. Fulfil the entrance requirements for a Department for Health PhD
2. Have a strong understanding of either computer programming/modelling and/or biomechanics and associated research methods.
3. Ideally, the candidate should have practical experience of using force plate, motion analysis and EMG systems, but this is not essential.

How to Apply:
Applicants should apply online to study for a full time PhD in Health. It is important to quote the project title (Musculoskeletal modelling of biomechanical loading in simulated gravity situations for rehabilitation programmes) on your application.

You should outline your experience and reasons for applying, and provide a brief outline of your initial thoughts on the area of research (maximum 1000 words). However, please note that the application form will refer to a formal proposal. As this studentship is for a specific project, there is no need to write this formal research proposal.

The closing date for the receipt of applications is 12.00 noon (GMT), Tuesday 16th January 2018.

Potential interviews are preliminary scheduled for Thursday 1st February 2018.

The successful candidate is expected to start the studies by Monday 19th March 2018.