What Is Real Motion And Would We Know If We Saw It

12:00 noon, April 29, Tuesday, 2008, ST2, 430A

Speaker

Alexander Razzook
Project Engineer
Physical Disabilities Branch
Rehabilitation Medicine Department
The National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD

Naomi Lynn Gerber
Professor
Director, Center for Study of Chronic Illness and Disability
GMU

Abstract

Motion capture has a diverse history with contributions from astronomers, military generals, renaissance scientists, animators, illustrators, photographers, horse racing and the more recently the medical and movie industries. The purpose of this talk is to provide an historical overview of motion capture and the technologies and analytical methods that supported its growth to the multibillion dollar community it is today. Through slides, videos and debate, we’ll seek to answer whether the motion we are seeing (or recreating) is real and authentic. A clinical and sports application will be presented. We’ll conclude with limitations of the current technology and discuss future directions for innovative and interdisciplinary motion research.

Short Bio

Mr. Razzook received his bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering (B.B.E.) and a Master’s of Science in Engineering (M.S.E.) from the Catholic University of America. After his undergraduate studies, Mr. Razzook was a Motion Lab Engineer at the Physical Disabilities Branch at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda Maryland. Currently he serves as a Project Engineer in the Rehabilitation Medicine Department at the NIH. In this position he manages a motion capture laboratory, advises investigators in research protocol design, participates on an interdisciplinary rehabilitation research team and serves as a project manager on rehabilitation research projects for the department. His research interests include evaluating compensatory strategies in patients with impairments, assessing adaptations to assistive devices such as ankle foot orthoses and designing and integrating new biomechanics tools to foster innovative rehabilitation research.