September 2024 – Project will use AI to merge health data with input from nurses, therapists, and other healthcare professionals

An innovative, interdisciplinary project co-led by Andrew Boyd will use artificial intelligence to unify data from a broader range of health professions and create novel, holistic datasets that could transform health care, driving discoveries that positively impact patient outcomes and care.

The collaboration with University of Iowa, University of Missouri and Loyola University and technical partners Microsoft and Tackle AI received up to $10 million from the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H. The award is the first ARPA-H funding received by UIC, which will serve as the contracting institution.

Researchers will create new ways to combine structured data and free-text notes from nurses, physical and occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists and physicians for more effective use in electronic health records. These notes often provide additional, valuable information about a patient’s progress, particularly as their care moves outside a hospital or clinic.

July 2024 – Functional electrical stimulation to enhance reactive balance among people with hemiparetic stroke

Individuals with stroke demonstrate a twofold higher fall incidence compared to healthy counterparts, potentially associated with deficits in reactive balance control, which is crucial for regaining balance from unpredictable perturbations to the body. Moreover, people with higher stroke-related motor impairment exhibit greater falls and cannot recover balance during higher perturbation intensities. Thus, they might need supplemental agents for fall prevention or even to be included in a perturbation-based protocol. Functional electrical stimulation is a widely used clinical modality for improving gait performance; however, it remains unknown whether it can enhance or interfere with reactive balance control.

Participants in this study led by R Purohit, G Varas-Diaz, and T Bhatt (pictured) demonstrated fewer falls, higher reactive stability, and higher vertical limb support (p < 0.05) following gait-slips with functional electrical stimulation compared to those without. This was accompanied by reduced step initiation time and a longer compensatory step (p < 0.05).

The application of functional electrical stimulation to paretic quadriceps following gait-slips reduced laboratory fall incidence with enhanced reactive balance outcomes among people with higher stroke-related motor impairment. These results lay the preliminary groundwork for understanding the instantaneous neuromodulatory effect of functional electrical stimulation in preventing gait-slip falls, future studies could test its therapeutic effect on reactive balance. Experimental Brain Research, 2024

November 2023 – Effects of mentally induced fatigue on balance control: a systematic review

The relationship between cognitive demands and postural control is controversial. Mental fatigue paradigms investigate the attentional requirements of postural control by assessing balance after a prolonged cognitive task. However, a majority of mental fatigue research has focused on cognition and sports performance, leaving balance relatively underexamined. The purpose of this paper authored by Jessica Pitts and Tanvi Bhatt, was to systematically review the existing literature on mental fatigue and balance control. We conducted a comprehensive search on PubMed and Web of Science databases for studies comparing balance performance pre- to post-mental fatigue or between a mental fatigue and control group. The literature search resulted in ten relevant studies including both volitional (n = 7) and reactive (n = 3) balance measures. Mental fatigue was induced by various cognitive tasks which were completed for 20–90 min prior to balance assessment. Mental fatigue affected both volitional and reactive balance, resulting in increased postural sway, decreased accuracy on volitional tasks, delayed responses to perturbations, and less effective balance recovery responses. These effects could have been mediated by the depletion of attentional resources or impaired sensorimotor perception which delayed appropriate balance-correcting responses. Exp Brain Res. 2023 Jan;241(1):13-30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-022-06464-x

August 2023 – The Effect of Cognitive Task, Gait Speed, and Age on Cognitive–Motor Interference during Walking

Dual-tasking can cause cognitive–motor interference (CMI) and affect task performance. This study by Jessica Pitts, Kunal Singhal, Yashashree Apte, Prakruti Patel, Lakshmi Kannan and Tanvi Bhatt (pictured), investigated the effects of age, gait speed, and type of cognitive task on CMI during gait. Ten younger and 10 older adults walked on a pressure-sensitive GAITRite walkway which recorded gait speed and step length. Participants walked at a slow, preferred, or fast speed while simultaneously completing four cognitive tasks: visuomotor reaction time (VMRT), serial subtraction (SS), word list generation (WLG), and visual Stroop (VS). Each combination of task and speed was repeated for two trials. Tasks were also performed while standing. Motor and cognitive costs were calculated with the formula: ((single-dual)/single × 100). Higher costs indicate a larger reduction in performance from single to dual-task. Motor costs were higher for WLG and SS than VMRT and VS and higher in older adults (p < 0.05). Cognitive costs were higher for SS than WLG (p = 0.001). At faster speeds, dual-task costs increased for WLG and SS, although decreased for VMRT. CMI was highest for working memory, language, and problem-solving tasks, which was reduced by slow walking. Aging increased CMI, although both ages were affected similarly by task and speed. Dual-task assessments could include challenging CMI conditions to improve the prediction of motor and cognitive status. Sensors (Basel). 2023 Aug 24;23(17):7368. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23177368

January 2023 – Physical Activity and Health Equity for Middle-Aged and Older Adults

Physical activity (PA) has been associated with a multitude of beneficial mental and physical outcomes. It is well documented, however, that there are health disparities and inequities for segments of the population, especially as related to PA. Engagement of traditionally minoritized populations into research is essential for justice in health. Lead author, David Marquez (pictured), and his colleagues discuss a community engagement model that can be used for recruiting and retaining traditionally minoritized populations into PA research, and then go into three major ethnic/racial groups in the United States: Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans. Background information of each group, cultural values that play a role in health for each of the groups, and research demonstrating how culture plays a role in the formation and implementation of PA interventions in these groups is presented. Kinesiology Review, 12(1), 66-75. Retrieved Nov 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1123/kr.2022-0032

November 2022 – Dancing among older Latinos: Interweaving health and culture

Physical activity (PA) has been linked to health across a multitude of mental and physical outcomes. Given that leisure time PA is mostly related to favorable health outcomes, strategies to increase leisure time PA among Latinos are warranted. Dance is a form of PA that can also be adjusted to different populations, ages and physical limitations, and is a main commonality across the large and diverse Latino population. To date, evidence on the health benefits of dance for older Latino adults are limited. In this paper, the authors David X. Marquez, Susan Aguiñaga (pictured), Priscilla G. Vásquez, Isabela G. Marques, Guilherme M. Balbim, and Michelle Jaldin describe the development and health benefits, in traditional qualitative and quantitative studies, of a Latin dance program that aimed to increase PA, improve cognition, and build community in older Latino adults residing in a major US city. First, they present the formative work, followed by a short description of the BAILAMOS™ dance program. Subsequently, they briefly discuss the progression of trials with BAILAMOS as the intervention and the main results. It appears that regular Latin dancing can increase overall PA and influence aspects of physical and cognitive functioning. This finding highlights the importance of creating PA interventions that incorporate opinions and feedback from the community the intervention targets, are culturally relevant, that take place in older Latinos’ communities, and that are linguistically appropriate and led by bilingual and bicultural staff. The Art of Latina and Latino Elderhood. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19

October 2022 – Perturbation-based balance training: Principles, mechanisms and implementation in clinical practice

Since the mid-2000s, perturbation-based balance training has been gaining interest as an efficient and effective way to prevent falls in older adults. It has been suggested that this task-specific training approach may present a paradigm shift in fall prevention. In this review, Christopher McCrum, Tanvi S. Bhatt, Marissa H. G. Gerards, Kiros Karamanidis, Mark W. Rogers, Stephen R. Lord, and Yoshiro Okubo discuss key concepts and common issues and questions regarding perturbation-based balance training. In doing so, they aim to provide a comprehensive synthesis of the current evidence on the mechanisms, feasibility and efficacy of perturbation-based balance training for researchers and practitioners. The authors address this in two sections: “Principles and Mechanisms” and “Implementation in Practice.” In the first section, definitions, task-specificity, adaptation and retention mechanisms and the dose-response relationship are discussed. In the second section, issues related to safety, anxiety, evidence in clinical populations (e.g., Parkinson’s disease, stroke), technology and training devices are discussed. Perturbation-based balance training is a promising approach to fall prevention. However, several fundamental and applied aspects of the approach need to be further investigated before it can be widely implemented in clinical practice. Front Sports Act Living. 2022 Oct 6;4:1015394. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2022.1015394

April 2022 – David Marquez is quoted in an article about the importance of physical activity such as dance in healthy living.

Marquez is co-creator of a program that incorporates Latin dance styles – merengue, cha-cha-cha, salsa and bachata – to encourage physical activity in older Latinos. See: Article