Gait analysis is the best objective measurement tool for monitoring rehabilitation. However, it has limitations to evaluate gait recovery. Previous studies have evaluated the effect of gait training using continuous relative phase. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of gait recovery by rehabilitation gait training on lower limb coordination. We analyzed spatio-temporal parameters and CRP values of hip and knee joints based on gait analysis data obtained by 3D motion analysis system at 15 days intervals in 24 uni-lateral transfemoral amputees participated in IRP. Our results revealed that walking velocity of uni-lateral transfemoral amputees who participated in the program during a mean of 107.1 days was 49.2% faster than that at initial stage. The walking velocity showed a 46% increase at the end of 30 days after training. In gait coordination, values of CRP-RMS and CRP-SD were increased and maintained in-phase pattern. CRP showed symmetry in both limbs at the end of 90 days after training. Therefore, CRP is a significant factor in the gait recovery process. Effects of various rehabilitation training methods can be determined through CRP analysis.

Pharmacotherapy was mainly used to treat osteoporosis. However, some researches showed that pharmacotherapy could induce unexpected adverse effects. Some studies showed that whole body vibration affected beneficially osteoporosis. This paper studied the effect of whole body vibration for osteoporosis compared with the effect of pharmacotherapy.
10 female rats were used and allocated into 4 group, CON, SHAM, DRUG, and WHY. Rats except SHAM group were ovariectomised to induce osteoporosis. Rats in WHV group were stimulated in whole body vibration at magnitude of 1㎜^peak-peak and frequency 45㎐, for 8 weeks (30 min/day, 5 days/week). Rat in DRGU group was orally administered the Actonel (0.58㎎/㎏), for 8 weeks (5days/week). The 4^th lumbar in rats were scanned at a resolution of 35㎛ at baseline, before stimulation, and 8 weeks after stimulation by In-vivo micro computed tomography. For detecting and tracking changes of biomechanical characteristics (morphological and mechanical characteristics) in lumbar trabecuar bone of rats, structural parameters were measured and calculated from acquiring images and finite element analysis was performed.
In the results, loss of quantity and change of structure of trabecular bone in WBV group were smaller than those in both CON and SHAM groups. In addition, mechanical strength in WBV group was stronger than that in both CON and SHAM groups. In contrast, biomechanical characteristics in WBV group were similar with those in DRUG group.
These results showed that reasonable whole body vibration was likely to treat osteoporosis and be substituted partly for drug treatment.

The disaster from functional gastrointestinal disorders(FGID) has detrimental impact on the quality of life of the affected population. There are, however, rare diagnostic methods for FGID. Our research group identified recently that the gastrointestinal tract well of the patients with FGID became more rigid than that of healthy people when palpating the abdominal regions overlaying the gastrointestinal tract. The objective of the current study is, therefore, to identify feasibility of a diagnostic system for FGID based on ultrasound technique, which can quantify the characteristics above. Two-dimensional finite difference(FD) models(one normal and two rigid models) were developed to analyze the reflective characteristic(displacement) on each soft-tissue layer responded after application of ultrasound signals. Based on the results from FD analysis, the ultrasound system for diagnosis of the FGID was developed and clinically tested via application of it to 40 human subjects with/without FGID who were assigned to Normal and Patient Groups. The results from FD analysis showed that the maximum displacement amplitude in the rigid models(0.12 and 0.16) at the interface between the fat and muscle layers was explicitly less than that in the normal model(0.29). The results from actual specimens showed that the maximum amplitude of the ultrasound reflective signal in the rigid models(0.2±0.1Vp-p) at the interface between the fat and muscle layers was explicitly higher than that in the normal model(0.1±0.0Vp-p). Clinical tests using our customized ultrasound system showed that the maximum amplitudes of the ultrasound reflective signals near to the gastrointestinal tract well for the patient group(2.6±0.3Vp-p) were generally higher than those in normal group(0.1±0.2Vp-p). These findings suggest that our customized ultrasound system using the ultrasound reflective signal may be helpful to the diagnosis of the FGID.

This study investigated changes of mechanical characteristics of the trabecular and cortical bone in the lumbar vertebrae of the ovariectomised (OVX) rat. In previous researches, there were many studies for morphology of osteoporotic bones based on Micro-Computed Tomography (Micro-CI'), However, there were few studies for detecting and tracking changes of mechanical characteristics of the trabecular and cortical bone in the lumbar vertebrae of the OVX rat. For this study, the 4th lumbar of the OVX rat (female Sprague-Dawley) was utilized as a specimen. An OVX rat was scanned at week 0 Oust before surgery), at week 4, and week 8 after surgery. Micro-finite element (μ-FE) analysis was used to investigate mechanical characteristics of the trabecular and cortical bone in the lumbar vertebrae for an OVX rat. When the OVX rat (at week 8) was compared with the OVX rat (at week 0), the structural modulus of cortical and trabecualr bone was decreased by 52％ and 99％, respectively. This study showed the change of mechanical characteristics of cortical bone as well as trabecular bone of an OVX rat. Detecting and tracking changes of mechanical characteristics could greatly contribute to an experiment test for the trabecular and cortical bone in the lumbar vertebrae of an OVX rat by using In-vivo Micro-CT.