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Dr Sibylle Thies' Outputs (45)

A study of safety and acceptability of a novel front-wheeled indoor walking frame in older adults in the clinical setting (2025)
Journal Article

Purpose: Falls cost the NHS over £2 billion a year and are a major cause of loss of independence, confidence, and death, with incidence increasing rapidly with age. While walking frames provide structural support during walking, with the aim to reduc... Read More about A study of safety and acceptability of a novel front-wheeled indoor walking frame in older adults in the clinical setting.

Can a novel set of handgrips on a walking frame increase stability and support users when transferring to/from a chair? (2025)
Journal Article

Introduction: One important aspect of walking aid use is transferring safely to the aid from sitting and transferring back to the chair after walking, since these activities have been associated with falls in older adults. Standard frames require the... Read More about Can a novel set of handgrips on a walking frame increase stability and support users when transferring to/from a chair?.

Determining safety, usability, acceptability and potential for clinical use of an innovative walking frame design with in- and community patients (2025)
Journal Article

Purpose
Falls cost the NHS over £2 billion a year, with incidence increasing rapidly with age. Design of indoor walking frames remains limited, often needing to be lifted and not supporting sit-to-stand and turning manoeuvres, which can lead to fall... Read More about Determining safety, usability, acceptability and potential for clinical use of an innovative walking frame design with in- and community patients.

Evaluation of a novel biomechanics-informed walking frame, developed through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between biomechanists and design engineers (2023)
Journal Article
Thies, S. B., Bevan, S., Wassall, M., Kurissinkal, B., Chowalloor, L., Kenney, L., & Howard, D. (2023). Evaluation of a novel biomechanics-informed walking frame, developed through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between biomechanists and design engineers. BMC Geriatrics, 23(1), 734. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-04443-7

Background: Walking aids such as walking frames offer support during walking, yet paradoxically, people who self-report using them remain more likely to fall than people who do not. Lifting of walking frames when crossing door thresholds or when turn... Read More about Evaluation of a novel biomechanics-informed walking frame, developed through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between biomechanists and design engineers.

Why does my prosthetic hand not always do what it is told? (2022)
Journal Article
Chadwell, A., Prince, M., Head, J., Galpin, A., Thies, S., & Kenney, L. (2022). Why does my prosthetic hand not always do what it is told?. Frontiers for Young Minds, 10, https://doi.org/10.3389/frym.2022.786663

There are online videos that appear to show electrically powered prosthetic (artificial) hands to be near-perfect replacements for a missing hand. However, for many users, the reality can be quite different. Prosthetic hands do not always respond as... Read More about Why does my prosthetic hand not always do what it is told?.

Addressing unpredictability may be the key to improving performance with current clinically prescribed myoelectric prostheses (2021)
Journal Article

The efferent control chain for an upper-limb myoelectric prosthesis can be separated into 3 key areas: signal generation, signal acquisition, and device response. Data were collected from twenty trans-radial myoelectric prosthesis users using their o... Read More about Addressing unpredictability may be the key to improving performance with current clinically prescribed myoelectric prostheses.

Methods for clinical evaluation (2020)
Book Chapter
Kenney, L., Kyberd, P., Galpin, A., Chadwell, A., Granat, M., Thies, S., & Head, J. (2020). Methods for clinical evaluation. In K. Nazarpour (Ed.), Control of Prosthetic Hands : challenges and emerging avenues (29-67). Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET). https://doi.org/10.1049/PBHE022E_ch3

This chapter begins with an introduction to the challenges of measurement in upper limb prosthetics. This is followed by an overview of the traditional approaches to evaluation and their strengths and weaknesses. By traditional approaches, we mean te... Read More about Methods for clinical evaluation.

Upper limb activity of twenty myoelectric prosthesis users and twenty healthy anatomically intact adults (2019)
Journal Article

The upper limb activity of twenty unilateral upper limb myoelectric prosthesis users and twenty anatomically intact adults were recorded over a 7-day period using two wrist worn accelerometers (Actigraph, LLC). This dataset reflects the real-world ac... Read More about Upper limb activity of twenty myoelectric prosthesis users and twenty healthy anatomically intact adults.

Methods to characterize the real-world use of rollators using inertial sensors – a feasibility study (2019)
Journal Article
Sun, M., Kenney, L., Thies, S., & Costamagna, L. (2019). Methods to characterize the real-world use of rollators using inertial sensors – a feasibility study. IEEE Access, 7, https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2919286

Rollators are widely used by people with mobility problems, but previous studies have been limited to self-report approaches when evaluating their real-world effectiveness. To support studies based on more robust datasets, a method to estimate mobili... Read More about Methods to characterize the real-world use of rollators using inertial sensors – a feasibility study.

A generalizable methodology for stability assessment of walking aid users (2018)
Thesis
Costamagna, E. (in press). A generalizable methodology for stability assessment of walking aid users. (Thesis). University of Salford

Walking aids (WAs) aim to improve stability and are used by up to 50% of older Europeans. Paradoxically, their use has been linked to a 2-3-fold increase in the risk of falling. The reasons of this association are unknown, indeed WA use remains poorl... Read More about A generalizable methodology for stability assessment of walking aid users.

Upper limb activity in myoelectric prosthesis users is biased towards the intact limb and appears unrelated to goal-directed task performance (2018)
Journal Article

Studies of the effectiveness of prosthetic hands involve assessing user performance on functional tasks in the lab/clinic, sometimes combined with self-report of real-world use. In this paper we compare real-world upper limb activity between a group... Read More about Upper limb activity in myoelectric prosthesis users is biased towards the intact limb and appears unrelated to goal-directed task performance.

Methods for the real-world evaluation of fall detection technology : a scoping review (2018)
Journal Article
Broadley, R., Klenk, J., Thies, S., Kenney, L., & Granat, M. (2018). Methods for the real-world evaluation of fall detection technology : a scoping review. Sensors, 18(7), https://doi.org/10.3390/s18072060

Falls in older adults present a major growing healthcare challenge and reliable detection
of falls is crucial to minimise their consequences. The majority of development and testing has
used laboratory simulations. As simulations do not cover the w... Read More about Methods for the real-world evaluation of fall detection technology : a scoping review.

Skill assessment in upper limb myoelectric prosthesis users : validation of a clinically feasible method for characterising upper limb temporal and amplitude variability during the performance of functional tasks (2017)
Journal Article

Upper limb myoelectric prostheses remain challenging to use and are often abandoned. A proficient user must be able to plan/execute arm movements while activating the residual muscle(s), accounting for delays and unpredictability in prosthesis respon... Read More about Skill assessment in upper limb myoelectric prosthesis users : validation of a clinically feasible method for characterising upper limb temporal and amplitude variability during the performance of functional tasks.

Visualisation of upper limb activity using spirals - a new approach to the assessment of daily prosthesis usage (2017)
Journal Article

BACKGROUND: Current outcome measures used in upper limb myoelectric prosthesis studies include clinical tests of function and self-report questionnaires on real world prosthesis use. Research in other cohorts has questioned both the validity of self-... Read More about Visualisation of upper limb activity using spirals - a new approach to the assessment of daily prosthesis usage.