Posture Correction Device with Haptic Feedback for Parkinson’s Disease
Team Members
Dakota Anderson, Noah Doyle, Maxwell Hultquist, and Hannah Marti, Biomedical Engineering
Advisor
Smitha Rao, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsor
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Project Overview
Parkinson’s disease involves the gradual degeneration of dopamine-producing nerve
cells which control body movement. Symptoms include freezing gait, tremors, bradykinesia,
and postural instability. Appropriate feedback can correct postural instability, in
turn improving mobility and decreasing risk of injury. The proposed system monitors
posture and provides haptic feedback for posture correction. The system uses dynamic
data from onboard sensors and can be personalized to patients’ needs. It is safe,
easy to use, low cost, and usable by a multitude of individuals with motorcontrol-related
conditions.
Rapid Prototyping of Ultrasound Elastography Phantom
Team Members
Madeline Faust, Corinn Gehrke, Morgan Herzog, Karry Modolo, and Armani Salary, Biomedical
Engineering
Advisors
Jingfeng Jiang and Rupak Rajachar, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsor
Materialise
Project Overview
Ultrasound elastography phantoms evaluate and calibrate the performance of ultrasound
devices. Elastography is a method that performs digital palpation of pathology. Existing
ultrasound phantoms are often not complex enough to challenge imaging devices. Weaknesses
in ultrasound elastography methods means ultrasounds cannot be truly tested without
costly clinical trials. More complex phantoms need to be developed to challenge ultrasound
elastography devices. To achieve this, additive manufacturing is being explored using
cheap, polymer materials that mimic the elastic modulus and density of normal and
cancerous breast tissues. This project focuses on applying this technology to model
invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) and normal breast tissues.
Customizing Transcatheter Nitinol Stents for Treatment of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome in Infants
Team Members
Emma Davis, Kat Farkas, Amanda Gogola, and Ami Kling, Biomedical Engineering
Advisors
Jeremy Goldman and Smitha Rao, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsor
Spectrum Health Innovations—Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital
Project Overview
Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) is a congenital heart defect that is mainly
characterized by the underdevelopment of the left ventricle. Currently, multiple open
heart surgeries are performed to correct this problem. Our team’s goal was to help
eliminate the need for the first surgery by designing and testing catheter deployment
of a modified nitinol stent with improved patient matching. The idea of deforming
the stent with a microsphere to better fit anatomically relevant infant heart geometries
was explored, as well as the feasibility of the use of this deformed shape.
Tooth Movement Simulation Instrument
Team Members
Brendan McNamara, Alex Moore, Jason Smith, Biomedical Engineering, and Chad Pollock,
Electrical Engineering
Advisors
Megan Frost and Bruce Lee, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsor
3M
Project Overview
3M is developing orthodontic appliances to move teeth in order to correct malocclusions.
Testing these orthodontic appliances is necessary to prepare them for in vivo studies
and understand the appliances’ capabilities. The current testing method requires high
processing temperatures that create unwanted stress on the appliances, and the measurements
are not quantitative. The team created a prototype that demonstrates a more realistic
tooth movement as well as a quantitative measurement of the displacement. This was
achieved by creating a copolymer blend to lower the processing temperatures while
simulating the tooth-tissue interface. The displacement is measured quantitatively
through image cross-correlation using images taken by a camera system.
Contrast Valve Characterization
Team Members
Jacob Altscheffel, Sydney Chaney, Miguel Solis, Biomedical Engineering, and Zachary
Garavet, Computer Engineering
Advisor
Sean Kirkpatrick, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsor
ACIST Medical Systems
Project Overview
ACIST manufactures high pressure contrast injection pumps and the high volume disposable
kits that go with them. As ACIST has grown, additional tools and contract manufacturers
have come on board to help sustain consumable demands. While the designs are the same,
they periodically show differences in performance. ACIST has tasked our team with
designing a prototype to test the quality of each manufacturer’s syringe valve, where
the most variance in performance is shown.
Combination Patient Warming and Transfer Device
Team Members
Jenna Burns, Electrical Engineering; Kemin Fena, Elizabeth Martin, Zach Nelson, and
Rebecca Rutherford, Biomedical Engineering
Advisor
Orhan Soykan, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsor
3M
Project Overview
Nurses face two main challenges when moving a patient. Studies show that nurses naturally
lose their strength over time, and a greater number of patients are becoming more
obese, making them harder to lift. The combination of these factors can injure nurses
on the job. This project focuses on moving a patient into and out of a surgical suite.
These suites tend to be cold and can lower the patient’s core body temperature. It
is important to warm the patient so they maintain their normal core temperature. Keeping
the patient warm helps prevent illness. Our team has created a working prototype of
a heated patient transfer device.
Instrumentation of Manual Medical Devices
Team Members
Derryl Poynor, Justin Harthorn, and Corey Fase, Biomedical Engineering; Gabriel Wykle,
Electrical Engineering
Advisors
Jeremy Goldman and Feng Zhao, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsor
Boston Scientific
Project Overview
The most common vascular catheterization techniques require manual manipulation of
an intravascular guidewire by a physician, who receives feedback from qualitative
real-time X-ray imaging and physical resistance. There is currently no reliable method
to measure the forces generated during manual manipulation of the guidewire. The objective
of this project is to instrument a modified torque clamp to quantify the physician’s
interaction with an intravascular guidewire for additional electronic operator assessment.
We anticipate the real-time, quantitative feedback of the force applied down the shaft
of a guidewire will help train physicians to prevent vessel perforation and tip failure
from excessive applied force.
Assessment of Methods to Visualize and Remove Biofilm Layer on Orthopedic Implants during Surgery
Team Members
Breeanne Spalding, Carly Joseph, Jonathan Kelley, and Joy Collard, Biomedical Engineering
Advisor
Megan Frost, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsors
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Jennifer Bow, Surgical Consultant
Project Overview
Each year, nearly one million hip and knee arthroplasties are performed in the United
States. An artificial joint can significantly improve a patient’s quality of life,
but failure of the prosthetic can result in patient morbidity and a gross increase
in medical expenses. A major cause of failure is infection, which occurs when a bacterial
biofilm develops on the implant. Bacterial strains that grow into biofilms are generally
less susceptible to antibiotics and host defenses than the same organisms in their
planktonic forms. This continuation project seeks to visualize mature, infectious
biofilms on orthopedic implants and to determine the most effective method to remove
these biofilms during surgery.
Blubber-Only Implantable Satellite Tracking Device for Humpback Whales
Team Members
Justin Batchelor, Hannah Fisher, Paul Shelcusky, and Nathaniel Smith, Biomedical Engineering
Advisors
Rupak Rajachar and Bruce Lee, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsor
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Project Overview
The goal of our project is to create a novel blubber only implantable satellite tracking
tag for monitoring whale movement patterns over extended periods of time. Current
tags are known for causing irritation issues in the whales that lead to premature
rejection of the tags. Our team worked to design a tag that would be less invasive
and more biocompatible than existing products. This meant designing smaller tags with
design attributes that would promote better adhesion in a more biologically sensitive
manner. We proposed 10 designs, of which six were prototyped and four were tested
and analyzed.
Enhanced Measurement and Analysis of Gait Disturbances
Team Members
Justine Reed-Sandrum and Dex Driggers, Biomedical Engineering; Sonja Hedblom, Mechanical
Engineering; Nic Schweikart, Computer Engineering
Advisor
Jingfeng Jiang, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsor
Aspirus Keweenaw
Project Overview
With this project, our team seeks to reduce the time duration of full patient recovery
from hip and/or knee orthopedic surgery. As a result of infrequent physical therapy
appointments, the recovery of postoperative patients relies heavily on unsupervised
practice outside of the clinic. When patients exercise out of the clinic, they do
not have professional gait corrective feedback readily available. We designed a device
to monitor a patient’s upper body and legs. It provides real-time scientific gait
feedback, logs data of a patient’s progress, encourages proper gait form, and ultimately
accelerates recovery
Objective Method to Measure Chronic Pain
Team Members
Jacob Brown, Kari Helminen, and Thomas Spicuzza, Biomedical Engineering; Adam Reese,
Electrical Engineering
Advisor
Keat Ghee Ong, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsor
Medtronic
Project Overview
For many years, pain level in chronic pain patients has been determined by asking
the patient to report their pain level. Whether this pain is reported by choosing
a pain level on a scale of 1-10, or by choosing an image of a face that describes
their pain level, the patient’s subjective input has been crucial. Our team’s goal,
with the help of our sponsor, is to design a pain measurement protocol that reports
a patient’s pain level with minimal subjective input from the patient. Through a wearable
device, the use of computer programming, and real patient data, an objective pain
measure can be calculated to allow physicians to better treat their patients.
Delivering and Fixing a Lead into the LV Myocardium
Team Members
Ross Michaels, Jared Johnson, Sean Casey, and Emily Morin, Biomedical Engineering
Advisors
Rupak Rajachar and Feng Zhao, Biomedical Engineering
Sponsor
Medtronic
Project Overview
The general design for this project is to create a system in which a lead is delivered
from the epicardial surface through the myocardium, but not penetrating into the LV
chamber. This requires a delivery system and a method to penetrate the epicardial
layer and then direct the lead to the endocardial surface. Our goal is to accomplish
this with a minimally invasive surgical approach.