By wearing an array of sensors that feeds live data into a computer, Lillie Wacaster helps researchers at Shriners Hospital in Chicago study how children with orthopaedic challenges walk. The analysis is part of a multimillion-dollar research project led by Marquette biomedical engineering professor Dr. Gerald Harris.
L
Lillie, 15, has osteogenesis imperfecta,
a rare condition also known as brittle bone disease that makes her especially
For Harris, who spends a few days each month at Shriners, it’s the latest step
less severe form of the disease, lab workers
in a career-long commitment to helping
at Shriners recall one OI patient who broke
children with orthopaedic challenges. He
both femur bones simply by sneezing.
says helping kids is a driving force for
aged 20 or so, have many fractures. Some
everyone involved. “That’s what motivates them, the fact
have had as many as 50 or more,” says
that they’re really having a positive impact
Harris, who co-authored a new book
on these children and their families,” says
on OI that will be published this spring.
Harris, who also directs Marquette’s
“They represent a very fragile patient —
Orthopaedic Research & Rehabilitation
but a patient that has tremendous capacity
Engineering Center. “At Shriners, they
for increasing the quality of life.”
care for those kids for 18 or 19 years. The
Harris and Marquette are part of a
children keep coming back. We have a long
research consortium that includes higher
history of quantitative assessment, and
education and health care partners in
it’s sort of like the well that you can keep
Milwaukee and Chicago. The group,
going back to for more encouragement.”
called Tech4Pod — technologies for
Harris’ team uses a relatively new
pediatric orthopaedic disabilities — was
technology, called nanoindentation, to
designated a national Rehabilitation
measure bone fragments removed from
Engineering Research Center by the U.S.
OI patients during surgery. In the past,
Department of Education in 2010 and is
those fragments simply were discarded.
funded by a five-year, $4.75 million grant. The consortium also includes Shriners
Discover
and other orthopaedic issues.
vulnerable to fractures. Though Lillie has a
“These children, by the time they’re
10
clubfoot, spina bifida, spinal cord injuries
“But now, we can take those tiny little fragments and we can actually
in Chicago, the Rehabilitation Institute
get the material property information,”
of Chicago, the Medical College of
Harris says. “We’ve put that into a series
Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin–
of models so we can predict fracture in
Milwaukee and the Milwaukee School of
these children.”
Engineering. Together, they’re developing
By combining data gathered from
new tools and improved treatment strate-
bone fragments with gait analysis —
gies for children with cerebral palsy, OI,
plates in the floor of the gait lab at