Digital Health Bonn

@article{peper-2020-a,

title = {Comparing Muscle Activity and Spine Shape in Various Sitting Styles},

author = {Erik Peper and Björn Krüger and Esther Gokhale and Richard Harvey},

doi = {10.5298/1081-5937-48.3.03},

issn = {1081-5937},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-01-01},

urldate = {2020-01-01},

journal = {Biofeedback},

volume = {48},

number = {3},

pages = {62–67},

abstract = {Back problems affect 80% of the population in the U.S. at some time during their lives, and each year 32 million Americans experience lower back pain at an estimated economic cost of $560-$635 billion. One contributing factor for back pain is posture, and more particularly, lack of awareness of dysfunctional posture. For example, many people may sit in a slouched or forward-bent position, exacerbated by poor ergonomics while sitting or, extended use of handheld digital devices while standing such as looking down at a smartphone for long periods of time. This report describes a ‘stacksitting’ technique which is one of the components of the Gokhale Method® for healthy, relaxed sitting and increased awareness of posture. The stacksitting process is illustrated with a case study where the shape of the spine and the muscle activity is analyzed in parallel during three sitting styles: slouching, arched, and stacksitting. The spine curvature was characterized by the Gokhale SpineTracker™ wearable, which consists of five sensor-units attached along the subjects’ spines that are used to plot the spinal curve on a digital device such as a smartphone, tablet or computer. SEMG recordings were made from the right upper trapezius, left upper trapezius, right mid-back, and left mid-back with a second device (Myoscan Pro sensors recorded with Biograph Procomp Infinity) while participants were seated in three postures: a slouched (forward-bent) position, an upright ‘arched’ position, and an upright ‘stacksitting’ position as trained by a Gokhale Method teacher. The case observations showed no significant difference in trapezius SEMG activity during each of the three positions. There was a slight increase in SEMG activity of the mid-back during stacksitting (1.1 µV) as compared to when slouched (0.64 µV) and, a significant increase in SEMG activity when sitting arched (4.9 µV). As expected, the spinal activity tracking device showed significant straightening of the lower spine during the stacksitting position as compared to the slouched and arched positions. The observations suggest that the stacksitting position can be taught to others in a way that allows the vertebrae to be parallel to each other with very low levels of corresponding muscle activity. In contrast, sitting in an arched or slouched position would increase asymmetrical pressures on the disks, contributing to vertebral wedging which could also contribute to spinal disk-bulging and eventual back injury. The observations suggest that proper coaching may foster a stacksitting position of the spine, which would foster a healthier posture than a slouched or arched spinal positions.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Mezzarobba2020,

title = {Action Observation Plus Sonification. Biomechanical Analysis of Sit-To-Walk Performance in Patients with Parkinson's Disease and Freezing of Gait},

author = {Susanna Mezzarobba and Michele Grassi and Lorella Pellegrini and Mauro Catalan and Björn Krüger and Lara Stragapede and Paolo Manganotti and Paolo Bernardis},

doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.parkreldis.2020.09.029},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-01-01},

urldate = {2020-01-01},

journal = {Parkinsonism & Related Disorders},

volume = {80},

pages = {133–137},

abstract = {Introduction. Freezing of gait (FoG) is one of the most disabling gait disorders in Parkinson's disease (PD) reflecting motor and cognitive impairments, mainly related to dopamine deficiency. Recent studies, investigating kinematic and kinetic factors affecting gait in these patients, showed a postural instability characterized by disturbed weight-shifting, inappropriate anticipatory postural adjustment, worse reactive postural control, and a difficulty to execute complex motor task (i.e. sit-to-walk). Symptoms that are difficult to alleviate and not much responsive to Levodopa. For this reason, additional therapeutic actions based on specific therapeutic protocols may help patients in daily life. Methods. In 2018, we conducted a randomized control trial aimed to test two clinical protocols for PD patients with FoG. Protocols, conceived to improve gait, were based on learning motor exercises with the Action Observation plus Sonification (AOS) technique, and with a standard protocol centered on cue use. We found a significant improvement in the FoG questionnaire and the UPDRS III clinical scale for the AOS protocol only. We also collected biomechanical data, using the sit-to-walk task as a measure of motor performance. Results. Here we report kinetic and kinematic analysis of data showing that, when treatment effects consolidate, patients treated with AOS protocol are more efficient in merging subsequent motor tasks (sit-tostand and gait initiation) with a better dynamic balance control during the sit-to-stand. Conclusion. Promising results of the AOS protocol in reducing FoG confirm that a mobility training focused on improving weight-shifting and motor switching abilities, may have benefits for Parkinson patients with FoG.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{stollenwerk-2019a,

title = {Analyzing Spinal Shape Changes During Posture Training Using a Wearable Device},

author = {Katharina Stollenwerk and Jonas Müller and André Hinkenjann and Björn Krüger},

url = {https://digital-health-bonn.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/sensors-19-03625.pdf, Paper},

doi = {https://doi.org/10.3390/s19163625},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-01-01},

urldate = {2019-01-01},

journal = {Sensors},

abstract = {Lower back pain is one of the most prevalent diseases in Western societies. A large percentage of European and American populations suffer from back pain at some point in their lives. One successful approach to address lower back pain is postural training, which can be supported by wearable devices, providing real-time feedback about the user’s posture. In this work, we analyze the changes in posture induced by postural training. To this end, we compare snapshots before and after training, as measured by the Gokhale SpineTracker™. Considering pairs of before and after snapshots in different positions (standing, sitting, and bending), we introduce a feature space, that allows for unsupervised clustering. We show that resulting clusters represent certain groups of postural changes, which are meaningful to professional posture trainers.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{mezzarobba2018a,

title = {Action observation plus sonification. A novel therapeutic protocol for Parkinson’s patient with freezing of gait},

author = {Susanna Mezzarobba and Michele Grassi and Lorella Pellegrini and Mauro Catalan and Björn Krüger and Giovanni Furlanis and Paolo Manganotti and Paolo Bernardis},

url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fneur.2017.00723},

doi = {10.3389/fneur.2017.00723},

issn = {1664-2295},

year  = {2018},

date = {2018-01-01},

urldate = {2018-01-01},

journal = {Frontiers in Neurology},

volume = {8},

abstract = {Freezing of gait (FoG) is a disabling symptom associated to falls, with little or no responsiveness to pharmacological treatment. Current protocols used for rehabilitation are based on the use of external sensory cues. However, cued strategies might generate an important dependence on the environment. Teaching motor strategies without cues (i.e. action observation - AO - plus sonification) could represent an alternative/innovative approach to rehabilitation that matters most on appropriate allocation of attention and lightening cognitive load. We aimed to test the effects of a novel experimental protocol to treat patients with Parkinson disease (PD) and freezing of gait, using functional, and clinical scales. The experimental protocol was based on action observation plus sonification. 12 patients were treated with 8 motor gestures. They watched 8 videos showing an actor performing the same 8 gestures, and then tried to repeat each gesture. Each video was composed by images and sounds of the gestures. By means of the sonification technique, the sounds of gestures were obtained by transforming kinematic data (velocity) recorded during gesture execution, into pitch variations. The same 8 motor gestures were also used in a second group of 10 patients; which were treated with a standard protocol based on a common sensory stimulation method. All patients were tested with functional and clinical scales before, after, at 1 month, and 3 months after the treatment. Data showed that the experimental protocol have positive effects on functional and clinical tests. In comparison with the baseline evaluations, significant performance improvements were seen in the N-FOG questionnaire, and the UPDRS (part 3 and 2). Importantly, all these improvements were consistently observed at the end, 1 month, and 3 months after treatment. No improvements effects were found in the group of patients treated with the standard protocol. These data suggest that a multisensory approach based on action observation plus sonification, with the two stimuli semantically related, could help PD patients with FoG to re-learn gait movements, to reduce freezing episodes, and that these effects could be prolonged over time.},

note = {accepted for Publication},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{iqbal-2018,

title = {A Dual-Source Approach for 3D Human Pose Estimation from Single Images},

author = {Umar Iqbal and Andreas Doering and Hashim Yasin and Björn Krüger and Andreas Weber and Juergen Gall},

url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1077314218300511},

doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cviu.2018.03.007},

issn = {1077-3142},

year  = {2018},

date = {2018-01-01},

urldate = {2018-01-01},

journal = {Computer Vision and Image Understanding},

volume = {172},

pages = {37–49},

abstract = {In this work we address the challenging problem of 3D human pose estimation from single images. Recent approaches learn deep neural networks to regress 3D pose directly from images. One major challenge for such methods, however, is the collection of large amounts of training data. Particularly, collecting a large number of unconstrained images that are annotated with accurate 3D poses is impractical. We therefore propose to use two independent training sources. The first source consists of accurate 3D motion capture data, and the second source consists of unconstrained images with annotated 2D poses. To incorporate both sources, we propose a dual-source approach that combines 2D pose estimation with efficient 3D pose retrieval. To this end, we first convert the motion capture data into a normalized 2D pose space, and separately learn a 2D pose estimation model from the image data. During inference, we estimate the 2D pose and efficiently retrieve the nearest 3D poses. We then jointly estimate a mapping from the 3D pose space to the image and reconstruct the 3D pose. We provide a comprehensive evaluation of the proposed method and experimentally demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, even when the skeleton structures of the two sources differ substantially.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Zsoldos2018,

title = {Long term consistency and locationspecificity of equine gluteus medius muscleactivity during locomotion on the treadmill},

author = {Rebeka Zsoldos and Anna Vögele and Björn Krüger and Ulrike Schröder and Andreas Weber and Theresia Licka},

doi = {10.1186/s12917-018-1443-y},

year  = {2018},

date = {2018-01-01},

urldate = {2018-01-01},

journal = {BMC Veterinary Research},

volume = {14},

number = {126},

pages = {1–10},

abstract = {Background: The equine m. gluteus medius (GM) is the largest muscle of the horse, its main movement function is the extension of the hip joint. The objective of the present study was to measure equine GM activity in three adjacent locations on GM during walk and trot on a treadmill, in order to document potential differences. Fourteen Haflinger mares were measured using surface electromyography and kinematic markers to identify the motion cycles on three occasions over 16 weeks. The electrodes were placed on left and right gluteus medius muscle over the middle of its widest part and 5 cm lateral and medial of it. For data processing, electrical activity was normalised to its maximum value and timing was normalised to the motion cycle. A Gaussian distribution approach was used to determine up to 10 modes of focussed activity, and results were analysed separately for stance and swing phase of the ipsilateral hindlimb. Results: Fair reliability was found for mean mode values (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.66) and good reliability was found for mean mode locations (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.71) over the three data collection days. The magnitude of muscle activity identified as mean mode value was much larger at trot than at walk, and mean mode value was significantly different between stance phases of walk and trot for all electrode positions (p < 0.01). The pattern of muscle activity identified as mean mode location was significantly different for walk and trot at all electrode positions, both during stance and swing phases (p < 0.001). This indicates the different timing pattern between the gaits. Results of the three electrode positions on the same muscle during each gait were not significantly different when comparing the same measurement. Conclusions: The middle of the equine GM does not show any indication of functional differentiation during walk and trot on a treadmill; this might be due to lack of segmentation as such, or due to lack of need for segmented use for these very basic main tasks of the muscle. The reliability of the sEMG measurements over several weeks was fair to good, an indication for the robustness of the methodology.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{krueger2017Segmentation,

title = {Efficient Unsupervised Temporal Segmentation of Motion Data},

author = {Björn Krüger and Anna Vögele and Tobias Willig and Angela Yao and Reinhard Klein and Andreas Weber},

url = {https://digital-health-bonn.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/MotionSegmentationCode.zip, Source Code

},

doi = {10.1109/TMM.2016.2635030},

issn = {1520-9210},

year  = {2017},

date = {2017-01-01},

urldate = {2017-01-01},

journal = {IEEE Transactions on Multimedia},

volume = {19},

number = {4},

pages = {797–812},

abstract = {We introduce a method for automated temporal segmentation of human motion data into distinct actions and compositing motion primitives based on self-similar structures in the motion sequence. We use neighborhood graphs for the partitioning and the similarity information in the graph is further exploited to cluster the motion primitives into larger entities of semantic significance. The method requires no assumptions about the motion sequences at hand and no user interaction is required for the segmentation or clustering. In addition, we introduce a feature bundling preprocessing technique to make the segmentation more robust to noise, as well as a notion of motion symmetry for more refined primitive detection. We test our method on several sensor modalities, including markered and markerless motion capture as well as on electromyograph and accelerometer recordings. The results highlight our system’s capabilities for both segmentation and for analysis of the finer structures of motion data, all in a completely unsupervised manner.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{voegele2016a,

title = {Novel Methods for Surface EMG Analysis and Exploration Based on Multi-Modal Gaussian Mixture Models},

author = {Anna Vögele and Rebeka Zsoldos and Björn Krüger and Theresia Licka},

url = {https://digital-health-bonn.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/journal.pone_.0157239.pdf, Paper},

doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0157239},

year  = {2016},

date = {2016-01-01},

urldate = {2016-01-01},

journal = {PLOS ONE},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{effenberg2016,

title = {Movement sonification: Effects on motor learning beyond rhythmic adjustments},

author = {Alfred O. Effenberg and Ursula Fehse and Gerd Schmitz and Björn Krüger and H. Mechling},

url = {http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnins.2016.00219/abstracthttps://digital-health-bonn.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/fnins-10-00219.pdf. Paper},

doi = {10.3389/fnins.2016.00219},

year  = {2016},

date = {2016-01-01},

urldate = {2016-01-01},

journal = {Frontiers in Neuroscience},

volume = {10},

number = {219},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{riaz-2016a,

title = {Relational Databases for Motion Data},

author = {Qaiser Riaz and Björn Krüger and Andreas Weber},

url = {https://digital-health-bonn.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Preprint-2016-Relational-Databases-for-Motion-Data.pdf, Preprint},

doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJICA.2016.078723},

year  = {2016},

date = {2016-01-01},

urldate = {2016-01-01},

journal = {International Journal of Innovative Computing and Applications},

volume = {7},

number = {3},

pages = {119–134},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{riaz2015a,

title = {Motion Reconstruction Using Very Few Accelerometers and Ground Contacts},

author = {Qaiser Riaz and Tao Guanhong and Björn Krüger and Andreas Weber},

doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gmod.2015.04.001},

year  = {2015},

date = {2015-01-01},

journal = {Graphical Models},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{hartmann2015a,

title = {Efficient Multi-Constrained Optimization for Example-Based Synthesis},

author = {Stefan Hartmann and Elena Trunz and Björn Krüger and Reinhard Klein and Matthias B. Hullin},

url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00371-015-1114-y},

doi = {10.1007/s00371-015-1114-y},

year  = {2015},

date = {2015-01-01},

journal = {The Visual Computer / Proc. Computer Graphics International (CGI 2015)},

volume = {31},

number = {6-8},

pages = {893–904},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}