UMass Amherst Kinesiology Faculty Receive National Institutes of Health Grants Totaling Over $1.3 Million
Aug. 11, 2006
| Contact: | Patrick J. Callahan 413/545-0444 |
AMHERST, Mass. – Faculty members from the department of kinesiology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences have been awarded two grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Patty S. Freedson, professor of kinesiology, leads a team of researchers that has received a five-year, $1.25 million grant from the NIH to develop and implement novel statistical methods to reduce measurement errors associated with current methods for assessing physical activities. Accurate measurement is necessary to examine dose response relationships between activity and health outcomes.
The investigators, who include John W. Staudenmayer, assistant professor of mathematics and statistics, and John P. Buonaccorsi, professor of mathematics and statistics, will use methods such as graphical models, neural networks, support vector machines, and error reduction methods to enhance the quality of the physical activity measurements. The work extends investigations initiated by Freedson’s doctoral student, David Pober, who also earned his master’s degree in the department of mathematics and statistics.
Pioneering work by Freedson has been done at UMass Amherst to improve activity assessment methods using accelerometers to assess free-living physical activity. Her work has led to widespread use of this technology nationally and around the world, including the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which is conducted annually to assess the health and nutrition of children and adults in the U.S.
Graham E. Caldwell, associate professor of kinesiology, heads up a research team that has received a two-year, $133,405 NIH grant to study muscular properties and balance control in older adults.
Collaborators in the research are Richard van Emmerik and Jane Kent-Braun from the department of kinesiology, and Buonaccorsi from mathematics and statistics.
A major health concern for aging adults is their susceptibility to compromised balance and a greater risk of falling. Aging also results in profound structural and functional changes in skeletal muscles. The project will relate the properties of muscles controlling the ankle joint to balance performance in healthy young people (age 21-35) and older people (age 65-80). The muscle properties will also be used to construct a musculoskeletal model to simulate the postural sway in young and older subjects. The development of this model will permit further investigation of the effect of muscular properties on balance. This research could be important in developing successful balance training protocols designed to ameliorate the effects of age-related deficits in balance. Such balance training could reduce the risk of falling and improve the quality of
life for elderly adults.
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