My name is Alli Sweeney and I am one of the research students in Dr. Young’s Locomotion Lab. Through this lab, I am working on my senior comprehensive research project! I joined the lab a little unsure about what I wanted to research because I am studying the molecular cellular side of biology and I do not know much about amphibians or reptiles! Originally, Dr. Young and I had discussed a project looking at the effect of organ mass on the rate of metabolism in salamanders. I was interested in this study because of the connection between my molecular cellular background and Dr. Young’s background in amphibians. This project had some things that needed to be worked out, and we were a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to have a good foundation for my comp with the short amount of time that I had. So, we brainstormed other ideas. One day, Dr. Young came to me with an idea about a study focusing on anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries. She had a student interested in creating a software package that is compatible with smartphones and focused on reducing ACL injuries. She explained to me that my study would provide a foundation for this software package to be created and I was very interested! Throughout my life, I have been an athlete and although I have never injured my own knees, I have been around several individuals who have. Seeing those individuals struggle to recover motivated me to push towards a career in athletic training. Over the years, however, my career interests have evolved from athletic training to becoming a physical therapist and then to becoming a physician’s assistant, which is now my current goal. Regardless, this project seemed very interesting to me and definitely up my alley, so I was ready to take on the challenge! The purpose of my study is to measure the prevalence of knee injuries in the Saint Mary’s College community by specifically looking at college-age women. By doing this, we will be able to identify and quantify differences in kinematic variables that are related to athletic activity in individuals who have had an ACL or other serious knee injury compared to individuals who have not. These preliminary data will be used to provide a baseline in order to expand the study to young adults of both sexes in the larger Michiana region. These data will then allow for more work into understanding knee kinematics through the development of the software package that I mentioned previously. Through the development of that package, we will be able to implement more prevention programs for athletes that will reduce the number of young adult knee injuries in the years following. I began collecting data this fall semester and it has been going pretty well. Participants include both individuals with ACL or other serious knee injuries as well as individuals with completely healthy, uninjured knees. The participants fill out a survey that asks questions associated with the history behind their knee injuries to get a little bit more of a background on the injury itself. Then, the participants read and sign an informed consent form and I place reflective markers on the patella of both knees, the medial and lateral sides of each knee, the medial and lateral malleolus of each ankle, the hips and the belly button. After all of that is said and done, they perform three standard drop-jump tests that I record with cameras from anterior and lateral positions. By the end of my data collection, I am hoping to have data from a total of 50 Saint Mary’s College students! Soon, I will be able to hit the ground running on some data analysis, but for now I am still trying to recruit as many more participants as I can for this last week of data collection (which is a lot harder than I had ever anticipated!) It has been a bit challenging, but I am excited to see what happens in the next month! This is what our setup looks like for collecting data on the drop-jump test. A photo of myself recording one of the participants performing the drop-jump test. Dr. Young and I looking at and discussing some footage.
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AuthorsAlok Agwick Archives
February 2024
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