News
Dr. Margarita Alegria visited our lab
Dr. Margarita Alegria from Mass General Hospital and Harvard Medical School spoke to the PhD students the importance of diversity in academic medicine. It was wonderful to host her and finally meet her in person after collaborating for a few years!
New publication in Clinical Biomechanics
In our most recent study in Clinical Biomechanics , we examined the associations between muscle activation and pain during a step-up movement in people with knee OA.
We report that larger quadriceps activation during the movement was related to lower pain during the same movement. We also report that larger activation was related to better overall physical function.
First Author: Ehyun Kim, MS
Read more here (free access to full article until Dec 15 2025): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268003325002566?dgcid=author
Dr. Brad Manor visited our lab
It was a pleasure to briefly host Dr. Brad Manor from Marcus Institute of Aging Research and Harvard Medical School in the lab!
Dr. Manor spoke at the Rehabilitation Science Seminar and shared his fascinating work with non-invasive brain stimulation to improve balance and mobility in aging.
Aaron Smith presented at the Fall 2025 UROP Symposium
Aaron Smith presented his summer research at the recent UROP symposium. Aaron is developing a deep learning model to estimate knee kinematics and kinetics from IMU data.
Dinner and Red Sox game!
Quick lab outing for dinner and a Red Sox game to celebrate all the recent successes, start of a new semester, new team members, and farewell to Shogo Okada!
New publication in PLOS One
Dr. Soyoung Lee published this study from her dissertation project.
We concurrently assessed pre-frontal cortex (PFC) activity and gait using wearable functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and inertial sensing systems during single- and dual-task walking in people with painful knee osteoarthritis (n=48).
We identified three key findings
1. PFC activation was similar between single- and dual-task walking
2. Gait was worse during dual- vs. single-task walking but cognitive performance was similar between dual-task walking and a cognitive task
3. Greater PFC activation during dual-task walking was related to better gait performance.
Our findings suggest that people with knee OA may not have sufficient brain reserve to increase prefrontal cortex function and maintain gait performance when challenged with dual-task conditions during walking. This may increase their risk of falls while walking in everyday life and interventions to improve dual-task walking performance may be considered in future studies.
Read open-access here:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0331070
New NIH UG3 grant to develop digital endpoints for knee osteoarthritis
We have received a UG3 award from The National Institutes of Health National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) for an exciting project to develop a composite digital endpoint of real-world pain and mobility for knee osteoarthritis.
Read more here: https://reporter.nih.gov/search/bDtARxv6ukysMQIotkLxiw/project-details/11206133
New publication in Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine
First authored by Dr. Nirali Shah, we published a new study on Participant Experiences in Using a Telehealth Mindful Exercise Program for Knee Osteoarthritis.
Read more here: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1177/27683605251364715
Dr. Kumar wrote about physical therapy and osteoarthritis for ACSM
American College of Sports Medicine published Dr. Kumar's commentary on "Osteoarthritis and Physical Therapy" under the ACSM Hot Topic series for this month.
In this piece, he summarizes our studies using real-world claims data that highlight the importance of physical therapy for people diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis and those receiving knee replacement surgeries.
He also touches upon the need for addressing comorbid psychological impairments and nervous system dysfunction that are commonly present in people experiencing chronic pain due to osteoarthritis.
Read the commentary here: https://acsm.org/hot-topic-osteoarthritis-and-physical-therapy/
Welcome Shogo Okada!
Shogo Okada is a physical therapist and PhD candidate at Kyoto University in Japan. Shogo will be visiting with us for a 4 months. He will be examining the impacts of muscle dysfunction, particularly loss of muscle power, on gait and osteoarthritis progression, using the Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study (MOST) data.
Welcome!
