A majority of individuals with an incomplete SCI may regain partial balance and walking ability, one-year post-injury. However, most of them experience loss of balance and injurious falls. This presentation aims to describe an investigation of the impacts of post-SCI sensory and motor impairments on standing and walking stability, towards targeted and guided rehabilitation strategies. Particularly, we measured the impacts of a variety of challenging conditions on the standing and walking stability of those with incomplete SCI using wearable sensors at rehabilitation hospitals in Toronto and Montreal. We will discuss how our measurement approach based on wearable sensors can be used to objectively evaluate the balance performance of individuals with SCI, with high clinical utility and sufficient resolution with discriminatory ability.

Hossein Rouhani is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Alberta, and a Research Affiliate at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital since 2015. He is also the founder and director of Neuromuscular Control & Biomechanical Laboratory. He received an MSc degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tehran, and a PhD degree in Biotechnology and Bioengineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). Dr. Rouhani was then a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto and Toronto Rehab Institute. Dr. Rouhani’s fields of research are (1) in-field health monitoring using innovative wearable technologies, (2) rehabilitative and assistive technology development, and (3) clinical outcome evaluation. Within his translational research program, 

Dr. Rouhani has had several collaborative research projects with university hospitals, such as Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, Institut de réadaptation Gingras-Lindsay-de-Montréal, and Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. He has implemented his developed wearable technologies in clinical research at these hospitals. Dr. Rouhani is a recipient of two postdoctoral fellowship awards from the Swiss National Science Foundation. He is also a guest editor of Sensors, and an associate editor of IEEE Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Frontiers in Sports and Active Living. Dr. Rouhani was a co-chair of Alberta Biomedical Engineering Conference (2017-2919) and is the congress chair of 2022 International Congress of the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering in Edmonton.