Kettering University

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Physical therapy for co-op

By Gary J. Erwin

Luck. A good word. Some might say that luck is the residue of skill. Others suggest that luck is something individuals simply stumble into blindly.

Sam Perlmutter doesn’t dwell on the sort of luck he’s had in his young engineering career. He appreciates it, but knows there’s a great deal of important work ahead of him.

But from an objective point of view, the luck Perlmutter has had in his career is the sort that one might never anticipate and must readily accept without hesitation.

In 2004, Perlmutter, feeling a bit unchallenged working as a student engineer at an automotive company, interviewed for a cooperative education position at Northwestern’s Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC, http://www.ric.org/). Founded in 1954, RIC has earned a worldwide reputation as a leader in patient care, advocacy, research and the education of health professionals in physical medicine and rehabilitation. But as luck would have it, the person he was scheduled to meet that day was called away unexpectedly. As a result, Perlmutter interviewed with Dr. Mohsen Makhsous, an assistant professor in the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s Dept. of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences, who was with the RIC at that time.

“Originally, I was to meet with Alicia Starr at RIC, who really pushed to bring in a co-op to help with the Center’s work,” he said, adding that the engineering background he brought to RIC, “was something she was interested in working into the organization’s research. Much of what we do here relies greatly on many engineering principles and theories. If it wasn’t for Alicia’s support and guidance to give biomedical research a chance, who knows what I might be doing today.”

Fast forward five years: Today, Perlmutter is engaged in a PhD program at Northwestern and believes he found his career calling. One of his primary projects is an effort that better understands the neurophysiology of trunk control in both healthy subjects, as well as individuals who have survived a stroke. These experiments involve subjects using real-time visual feedback from a six degree of freedom load cell to generate isometric force with an individual’s trunk in all directions while muscle activity is recorded using electromyographic (EMG) electrodes.

“In short, the trunk is biomechanically the most important ‘link’ in movement generation and stabilization. Thus, the trunk dysfunction as viewed post-stroke needs to be better understood using engineering methodology to improve rehabilitation practices,” Perlmutter explained. As an engineer, he feels the education and engineering approach is critical to rehabilitative research, since much of what an engineer does applies well to the study of movement science, particularly as it relates to the human body.

From March until June of this year, Perlmutter was pleased to have a second group of Kettering co-op students engaged in his research at Northwestern. One student—Junior Briana Reprogle of Noblesville, Ind., who majors in Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering at Kettering—worked on developing algorithms to analyze kinetics and kinematics of children riding tricycles to gain an understanding into how kids develop the skills necessary to properly stabilize and pedal efficiently. “This will help provide insight into enhancements for the trike that can help assimilate this learning process,” Perlmutter said.

Under the supervision of Perlmutter’s advisor, Mohsen Makhsous, Ph.D., Reprogle also helped work on a study that simulates pressure ulcers on both normal and spinal cord injury animal models.

“Since pressure ulcers are one of the main causes of death in people who suffer a spinal cord injury, our main objective is to prevent the development of pressure ulcers both internally and externally. Briana worked on a study that used an ultrasound probe and force sensor to help clinicians predict the occurrence of ulcers before they evolve to the skin surface. Once you see them on the skin, it’s too late,” Perlmutter said.

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