Keweenaw Report Your Source for Local News and Sports
A team at Michigan Tech is seeking participants for an exercise research study that seeks to help people recover faster after having knee joint replacement surgery.
The team is lead by Assistant Professor Dr. Steven Elmer from the Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology, and includes graduate students from Michigan Tech and a local physical therapist from Aspirus.
Dr. Elmer says eligible participants will help determine the benefits of a new home-based exercise program called B-FREE. “It stands for Blood Flow Restricted Exercise Enhancement. Basically, the older community members, if they participate in the program, they will be exercising at home three times a week for up to ten weeks, and they will actually be doing fairly easy exercise, but by adding this B-FREE application, it makes easy exercise a little bit harder and it helps to strengthen muscles around the knee that were impacted by the surgery.”
As part of this study, participant volunteers will perform the B-FREE exercise program at home for 3 months. “The biggest thing is we’re going to help them improve their strength, improve their balance, improve their walking ability. We do also give them an evaluation on how their knee is doing both at the beginning and end of the study, and then also we do provide compensation for participating in the study, too.”
You may be eligible to participate in this research study if you:
- Have had a knee replacement surgery
- Are between the ages of 40 – 75 years old
- Do not smoke
- Have not had a heart attack or stroke
- Are not diabetic
For more information please contact one of our research team members by phone or email:
Alicia Den Herder: adenherd@mtu.edu, (616) 970-1764)
OR
Ben Cockfield: bacockfi@mtu.edu, (231) 360-6682)
