Wendy Grevink, auteur op RRD

Moving personalised health technology forward: Understand, Create and Impact

Written by: Erik Prinsen

Roessingh Research and Development (RRD) is an impact lab for personalised health technology. Through innovative health technology, RRD contributes to prevention, self-management and optimal participation in society. For RRD, the starting point always is the end-user and the context of use to ensure that innovations meet the user needs and fit the healthcare context. How do we do it? In this blogpost we will introduce the new structure of RRD and highlight our main expertise and research focus.

Old wine in new bottles?

Over the past year, we have refined the focus of RRD. Where we used to focus on rehabilitation technology and eHealth as separate themes, we decided to merge these themes and focus on personalised health technology. Within personalised health technology we typically act as the social sciences and humanities (SSH) partner. Our starting point for the development, application and/or evaluation of personalised health technology is always the user and the context of use. We believe that this is essential for impactful personalised health technology and as such contributes to sustainable healthcare. To tackle these challenges, the researchers of RRD work in three flexible teams: Understand, Create and Impact. In the following sections, these teams are introduced.

Understanding the user and the context

Team Understand performs research to understand the user needs and requirements and the context of use as input for the development of personalised health technology. The starting point for this is our strong base of health-specific knowledge. Researchers in this team use movement analysis, patient journeys and service modelling to gain knowledge about the user’s health status and their interaction with health technology across all levels: in the persons themselves, in their daily life and in the society at large. This knowledge informs which and how health technology can contribute to the prevention, self-management and participation of its user.

Create tools to understand users and measure impact

To understand the user and the context of use and being able to measure the impact of personalised health technology, we need to collect data in everyday life. Team Create is working on several applications for this specific purpose. Over the years, RRD has developed its own research data platform called SenSeeAct. The SenSeeAct platform consists of the data platform itself, a web-portal and several Android and iOS applications that run on the data platform. These applications are developed in-house to give feedback to the user, therapist and/or physician. It can also be used to push questionnaires or act as a diary. Next to the SenSeeAct platform, RRD has also developed its own software for ambulant movement analysis with inertial sensors. The strength of this application is its flexibility as it can be adapted to specific use cases. In addition, researchers can have access to the raw measurement data.

Measuring the impact

Team Impact has extensive experience and expertise in measuring the impact of (early prototypes of) personalised health technology on its users and the society. Our expertise ranges from formative usability tests (starting level TRL-4) to GCP-compliant multicenter trials that are conducted within the scope of the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) (TRL-9). We have extensive experience in conducting randomized controlled trials. Next to this, we also have expertise in innovative research designs, such as the cohort multiple randomized controlled trial (cmRCT) that may be a better fit in the context of technology development. Besides looking at the impact of technology on its users, we also study the effect of technology on the society by using the Societal Return of Investment (SROI) methodology. With the SROI we can help organisations to understand and quantify the social, environmental and economic value that they are creating with their innovation.

All well that ends well

We strongly feel that the restructuring that we did over the past year has helped to shape the story of RRD in a much clearer way and prepare RRD to move towards the future. This doesn’t mean that we will stop moving forwards. We will continue to expand our expertise and knowledge through new innovation projects. Besides offering our expertise in research projects, we also offer our expertise for companies. We can perform a market analysis, give feedback to technology concepts, set-up and perform focus groups for personalised health technology, use of the research data platform for research projects, perform usability tests and perform (clinical) evaluation.

Does the profile of RRD fit with your research proposal or is the expertise of RRD a good fit in your innovation idea? Please do not hesitate to contact us as we love to share our story!

Erik Prinsen Email: e.prinsen@rrd.nl Tel: 088 087 5761

07/03/2023

ROBERT-SAS: rehabilitating with technology after a stroke!

Written by: Cindy Rikhof

Currently, I am working for almost three years at RRD on the ROBERT-SAS project (Eurostars grant no E113693). Within this project, we investigated the recovery of the lower extremity after a stroke. Now we are running two studies within the project. The first one focuses on the clinical implementation of a robot combined with electrical stimulation, in the (sub)-acute phase after stroke. The second study focuses on the relationship between force and the sit-to-stand transfer and walking after a stroke.

A robot combined with electrical stimulation sounds fancy, but what does it look like? The picture below shows that a brace holds the leg, and the brace is connected to the arm of the robot. With this configuration, the arm can move the leg, on a pre-specified path. The grey pads on the upper part of the leg are for electrical stimulation, which causes muscle contraction and thereby movement. We started with testing in the lab. All participants were comfortable and did not find it tiring. We are currently continuing with the next step: to the clinic!

Clinical pilot

During this clinical pilot, we are investigating the applicability and the early effects of the robot combined with electrical stimulation. The robot is situated in the exercise room of the physiotherapy department at Roessingh, Center for Rehabilitation. We provide training in the early phase after stroke. This training consists of three times a week 30 minutes training for 3-6 weeks. During these trainings, the movements that were frequently practiced are knee extension and ankle dorsiflexion in a lying position. The training sessions are based on ‘Assist-As-Needed’, which means that for every repetition there will be determined which assistance is required to complete the movement. This assistance consists of electrical stimulation and/or mechanical assistance.

Force and sit-to-stand transfer

Does the advantage of having more force in the lower extremity also have an advantage during sit-to-stand and walking? This is the question we are interested in, in this second study. We include both early and late after stroke. The participants are asked to perform some tasks, like knee flexion and extension, ankle dorsiflexion, etc. in a lying position. During these tasks, we measure the force and the muscle activity. The next step in this study is to stand up from a chair and walk in a straight line, again we will measure the muscle activity but also the joint angles.

For this last study, we are still looking for participants! So did you have a stroke or know someone with a stroke in their history with lower extremity problems and does this study sound interesting? Please contact me via: c.rikhof@rrd.nl or +3188-0875742!

If you have any questions regarding this project or my research, please contact me!

Cindy Rikhof

E-mail: c.rikhof@rrd.nl

Tel: 088 087 5742

06/13/2023

Conducting your graduation assignment at RRD?

Written by: Yfke Dotinga

Hi! My name is Yfke Dotinga and during the past eight months, I have been doing research for my graduation assignment at Roessingh Research and Development (RRD). In this post, I want to share my experiences of conducting a graduation assignment at RRD.

My assignment

My research was conducted as part of the RE-SAMPLE project (Horizon grant no 965315) for the development of an eHealth tool for people with COPD. My research focused on aligning the technology with the goals and needs of the end user. For the development of health technologies, it is very important to involve the user in the design process. Therefore, I took an iterative approach with participation of the users both at the start and end phase of my research. Based on these conversations, I conducted a thorough analysis to map their values and proposed design examples of how the effective engagement could be increased. This way, we hope to optimize the support of people with COPD in their self-management and to improve their quality of life.

Thanks to great support and the enthusiasm of Christiane Grünloh and co-researchers Eline te Braake, Marian Hurmuz and Stephanie Jansen-Kosterink, I really enjoyed working on my contribution to the RE-SAMPLE project. I finalised my assignment and successfully defended my master thesis in May!

Students at RRD

Students are offered a desk in a room with other interns/graduation students, with good company for the coffee breaks. We created the habit to go for a daily lunch walk through Ledeboerpark and we planned some activities together like ice skating, going out for diner and doing a board game night together. It was very nice to have other students around with similar assignments and struggles!

Furthermore, it was interesting to hear about other the projects and to occasionally serve as test subject in the motion lab. All in all, I have learned a lot during my graduation assignment, and I am satisfied with my time at RRD. So, thanks for all your support!

Do you want to follow an intern at RRD or conduct a graduation assignment (bachelor or master) at RRD? Check our vacancies and internships page!

Yfke Dotinga

06/06/2023

ISPO in Mexico!

Written by: Corien Nikamp

I had solemnly promised to write a blog post after a week in Mexico because of the World Congress of the International Society of Prosthetics and Orthotics in Guadalajara. With 2 symposia, 2 orals and chair a session of chairing, it promised to be a busy congress. Yesterday, our 9-day stay in Guadalajara was, not at all at our request, extended by one day because of a broken "part" of the plane. That meant an extra night with a voucher in a hotel, an early flight still to Atlanta and a 9-hour stop at the airport. So plenty of time to write this blog, in between a few games of 30-seconds with colleagues from Groningen (Enschede won 😊).

Together with RRD'ers Erik Prinsen and Martin Tenniglo, our trip began last Friday with a flight from Amsterdam to Mexico City. Colleague Martin soon made contact with a bunch of fellow Chinese passengers and was spontaneously offered local Chinese delicacies. It most closely resembled strange-colored sausages stuffed with egg or corn that would keep until the end of time, so I politely declined and stuck with the KLM meal. After an otherwise prosperous flight, we landed in Mexico City Friday evening local time and after choosing the wrong line 3 times, we had the right stamps in our passports and could proceed to our capsule hotel. The corridor with sleeping compartments looked most like a spaceship and I was looking forward (by now NL time deep into the night) to a nice bed.

Exploring downtown Guadalajara

After a night of no sleep on a mattress that was too thin with the bus station next door, we were able to get back to the right terminal at 5:00 a.m. local time, refreshed and ready to catch our flight to Guadalajara. All on schedule, so we finally reached our hotel around noon. After lunch at a local picturesque restaurant, Erik unfortunately had to go do important ISPO-NL chairman things, so Martin and I took a cab downtown to avoid falling asleep. That turned out to be a very good choice. On the way we feasted our eyes on how traffic moves in this metropolis of millions (how about cargo jamming?).

We visited the widely known cathedral and spent hours in a neighborhood with all kinds of markets, stores and eateries, so we bought some souvenirs. We immediately got a good impression of local Mexican life and it became clear to me that we (or at least I) take children's birthdays a little too lightly in the Netherlands. Stores full of decorations, balloon, garlands, plates/cutlery/straws/cups in all colors of the rainbow, piñatas and candy with all the E numbers you can think of in quantities of at least several kilos.

After a jet-lagged night of sleep, Martin and I woke up fairly refreshed and then signed up for a "Tequilla tour". A bus tour of about an hour led by Hector "the protector" as our local guide, we visited an agave plantation and local bar, after which we visited one of the most famous Tequilla breweries in Tequilla. A fun day where, as a non-Tequilla drinker, I especially enjoyed the outward and return drive to get an impression of the country.

ISPO Congress

On Monday, right after the opening ceremony, the program included a symposium by Erik, Martin and myself, in which we told how we at Roessingh Diagnostic Center approach (scientifically) treatment of stiff knee gait after CVA. Well attended and nice reactions so a good start of the congress. On Tuesday I went straight back to work because I was allowed to chair a session, and then continued with a symposium by Erik and myself, together with Prof. Nerrolyn Ramstrand from Jönköping, Sweden. Again a well-attended session with nice discussions, in which we talked about our experiences doing gait image analyses: what is the effect of the number of measurements you use for your results, and how could you present the results?

Wednesday I had a quieter day with only sessions to attend myself. In the evening the convention party was scheduled. A beautiful location on a ranch outside the booth and Mexican music and dancing as entertainment, so we turned a blind eye to the fact that the food was cold and the drinks ran out after 1.5 hours. I then had to present on the last convention day in the morning as the 1st session after the party, so didn't have high expectations for attendance, but that turned out to be all right. On "kingsday" we turned out to have a Dutch party in our session. Two foreign speakers did not show up, leaving 4 presentations from Amsterdam and Enschede, "orange above" that is. In this session, after several previous ISPO congresses in which I talked about the results of my PhD study, I found it super fun to present about the implementation of the EVO consultation in the Roessingh. So the circle is complete!

In the afternoon, we had one last presentation, about the 1st final results of our iHand study, in which we look at the effects of a soft-rubber glove during use in the home situation. It was nice to also be able to highlight this kind of rehabilitation technology during ISPO. With this session, a full conference week is over. It took a lot of preparation time, but resulted in a fun week of meeting old acquaintances and new contacts. Apart from the congress, what will stay with me from Mexico? Traffic with a "sporty driving style" and lights on cars as if they were fairground rides, holes in the pavement, loud music, rubbish on the streets, 30+⁰C, good food and friendly people, who by 5-10 minutes mean 20-30 minutes.

The next ISPO congress will take place in Stockholm in 2025, and with an invitation to sit on the "World Congress Scientific Committee" for 2025 in my pocket, preparations for the next edition have already begun! Hopefully in a moment we will have some last games of 30-seconds and then get a seat on the flight to Amsterdam, then we will be back home after 10 intense days.

One last beautiful mural I came across in town!

Regards, Corien

Corien Nikamp, PhD

E-mail: c.nikamp@rrd.nl

Tel: 088 087 5762

05/02/2023

PhD defences of Marit Zandbergen and Luca Marotta: The use of inertial measurement units (IMUs) in running

Written by: Marian Hurmuz

In the first week of February, two former RRD colleagues defended their PhD thesis! Their focus was on the running population. Marit Zandbergen defended her PhD thesis “Moving forwards by going outside: Inertial measurement unit-based monitoring of running biomechanics”. While running is a popular sport and has many health benefits, there is also a high risk of developing running-related injuries. Running biomechanics could be of help to monitor the risk of injury. However, it is unclear which biomechanics need to be taken into account. Marit worked on this topic during her PhD by aiming to increase our understanding of running biomechanics as measured in- and outside the laboratory and to explore the challenges regarding wearable motion analysis during running in a sport-specific setting. On Thursday, the 2nd of February, 2023, she defended her PhD thesis, which you can find here.

Her thesis covers the following topics:

Investigating the effects of running-induced fatigue on running kinematics.
Measuring running gait (i.e. running speed, stride frequency) in a fatiguing outdoor run.
Assessing the strength of the relationship between peak tibial acceleration and maximal tibial compression force in running.
Investigating whether the quasi-cyclical nature of running can be used to acquire drift-free 3D orientation of a body segment using a single gyroscope.
Identifying how the 3D orientation and displacement of a single IMU on the lower leg can be estimated using the quasi-cyclical nature of running.

Marit ends her thesis by recommending others to monitor running biomechanics in a sport-specific setting and to shift their focus from investigating kinematic quantities on a group level to forces underlying them on a subject-specific level. Moving outside by using the methods she proposed in her thesis, is the next step in increasing our understanding of running biomechanics!

On the next day, the 3rd of February, 2023, it was Luca Marotta’s time to defend his PhD thesis “Development of inertial sensor-based methods to assess physical fatigue in running applications”. As already explained, runners have a high injury risk. Monitoring physical fatigue could benefit runners, but quantitative identification of physical fatigue was lacking in literature. So, Luca focused on this by aiming to assess whether physical fatigue can be identified in running using IMUs. During Luca’s defence, one of the committee members even asked the paranymphs to be part of a small experiment. The paranymphs had to keep one arm straight ahead during the defence. This fun experiment showed that people could also get fatigued when they are not moving.

In Luca’s thesis the focus was of course in fatigue while moving, i.e. running. You can find his thesis here , and it includes the following topics:

Assessing whether biomechanical changes measured with IMUs can help accurately detecting fatigue states in running.
Identifying whether different triaxial IMUs with different sampling frequencies track similar relative changes in peak accelerations in treadmill running.
Measuring the extent to which physical fatigue can be identified using IMU data in an outdoor running session and identifying the optimal combination of sensor locations and features.
Assessing to which extent an algorithm trained on IMU data detecting fatigue can be generalised to different running intensities and scenarios.

Luca concludes his thesis by stating that machine learning models can identify running-induced fatigue with reasonable accuracy regardless of running intensity. Future research should focus on using fatigue information extracted from IMUs as a mean to provide feedback to the runner and ultimately improve training loads and decrease the risk of injuries!

We are very proud of both Marit and Luca for their hard work at RRD the past few years and for successfully defending their PhD theses! We wish them both the best of luck in their future career!

02/14/2023

Reeping what you sow: final plenary meeting LEAVES project

Written by: Lena Brandl

36 months, nine consortium partners, three countries, one common goal: supporting older adults after spousal bereavement. Loss is a common occurrence in life and grief is a normal and healthy reaction to loss. Yet, grief is overwhelming at times and one can find oneself feeling lost. Together with eight international partners in Portugal, Switzerland and in the Netherlands, RRD has spent the last three years developing an online service for older mourners to support them in processing the loss of their partner.

It has been an exciting journey, including many many hours discussing, creating and evaluating, together with older adults, grief professionals and our fellow consortium partners.

At DOMUSDELA, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, the consortium of AAL project LEAVES (Project No. AAL-2019-6-168-CP) gathered to streamline its recent efforts one final time, including:

discussing the progress of the evaluation study of LEAVES in Switzerland;
documenting the insights from the evaluation studies conducted in Portugal and the Netherlands in the second half of 2022 and preparing these results for (scientific) publication; and
finalizing a business case for future exploitation of the LEAVES intervention for spousal bereavement.

We also took some time to look back to where LEAVES began, including:

how we transformed a purely text-based grief intervention to a more dynamic, dialogue-based format, combined with readings, writing exercises and activity suggestions to foster self-care;
How we developed an algorithm to detect and communicate when LEAVES users might be better off involving offline support in their grieving process; and
how Luisa, our initial peer virtual coach for LEAVES, became Sun, the final sun-shaped virtual coach in the service. The virtual coach introduces the content of the application to LEAVES-users. During the project, we learned that for some older adults a virtual coach designed as a peer (an older adult who has lost their partner) is confusing. Some older adults who participated in early prototype tests of LEAVES were misled to think that Luisa is a real person which is why we ultimately abandoned the idea of a peer virtual coach.

AAL project LEAVES has entered its final stage of reporting and tying up loose ends and RRD fondly looks back to three years of fruitful collaboration with our LEAVES consortium partners. Now we look ahead to the final review of the project in April 2023.

Lena Brandl

Email: l.brandl@rrd.nl

Tel: 088 087 5768

02/07/2023

PhD defence of Jule Bessler-Etten: Safety first in rehabilitation robots!

Written by: Marian Hurmuz

The first PhD defence of 2023 took place! Jule Bessler defended her PhD thesis “Safety first in rehabilitation robots! Investigating how safety-related physical human-robot interaction can be assessed”. Nowadays, a lot of different robotic devices are (being) developed to be used in rehabilitation care. Such robots interact closely with humans. So, they introduce risks which need to be assessed carefully. But how can we assess this? And what factors do we need to take into account during the assessment? Jule worked on this topic during her PhD. On Thursday the 19th of January, 2023, she defended her PhD thesis, which you can find here.

Her thesis covers the following topics:

Identifying the most pressing risks and safety issues in rehabilitation robots.
Identifying factors which may lead to excessive force application to the human body by the robot.
Studying the proof of concept of a prototype measuring device to assess the force interplay between a human arm and a splint.
Assessing loads on the musculoskeletal system with an instrumented leg simulator.
Investigating how loads applied by rehabilitation robots affect comfort and safety.

Jule ends her thesis by giving recommendations for a roadmap to achieve improvements in the safety of rehabilitation robots, and to achieve knowledge and create guidelines which support developed in the safety certification process. Jule concludes her thesis that rehabilitation robots can only enter the market after this has been achieved.

We are very proud of Jule and her hard work at RRD! Jule continues working in the rehabilitation sector. She started working at Schuchmann in Germany as a Quality Assurance Manager. This company develops supporting devices for children in rehabilitation care. We wish Jule the best of luck in her career!

01/30/2023

How to tackle difficulties with implementing health technologies early on? – The importance of service modelling

Written by: Eline te Braake

In recent years, a lot of useful and promising eHealth technologies are developed. However, it is unfortunately still the case that a lot of these technologies are not (successfully) implemented in practice. It appears that daily practice is often very different than the research context. Furthermore, when in use, technology affects the behaviour of people, and vice versa, how people behave and use the technology, affects it’s impact. This can create a gap between the actual daily practice and the purpose of the eHealth technology. As a consequence, several eHealth technologies are only partial used or not at all used in practice. This means that potential end-users will never experience the benefits of these promising eHealth technologies.

How can we prevent this?

At RRD, we want to prevent this problem by looking at the implementation process from an early stage. Meaning that during the development of the eHealth technology, several steps are taken to decrease the chances of implementation failure. One of these steps is service modelling. A service model describes all the tasks, processes and responsibilities that certain people or organisations have or need to perform once the eHealth intervention will be put in daily practice. An important aspect of service modelling is to involve stakeholders; the people or organisations who affect or are affected by the technology. Stakeholders are the experts when it comes to daily practice, they have crucial knowledge about current struggles and strengths in practice which cannot be identified by solely looking at literature. Furthermore, by involving stakeholders, needs and wishes can be aligned which in time may increase the commitment towards future implementation.

Example of service modelling in a project

Recently, RRD developed the service model within the RE-SAMPLE project (Horizon grant no 965315). RE-SAMPLE is a European project that focuses on people with COPD. The goal of RE-SAMPLE is to develop a technology that supports patients and caregivers to manage their COPD and other chronic conditions. The RE-SAMPLE service model is based on 5 rounds of studies with stakeholders from three different countries: Italy, The Netherlands and Estonia.

Although RE-SAMPLE is one project, most of the studies were done for each country separately. It was very important to do this, because there are a lot of differences between the countries in terms of how care is organized. In Italy for example, it became clear that the physician spends most time with the patients, while in the Netherlands, pulmonary nurses see the patient with COPD more often. In the Netherlands, short waiting lists are seen as a strength of current care, while in Estonia, long waiting lists are mentioned as the weakness of current care. These are just small examples of the many differences between the three countries

Taking the differences into consideration, it appeared that one version of the service model cannot be used for all the three pilot sites. This is the reason that differences between countries are made clear in the service model. It might be that different roles and responsibilities are assigned to different stakeholders in a particular country. You can see the final version of the RE-SAMPLE service model with all the different roles, processes, and responsibilities below:

praktijkvoorbeeld_implementatie_van_gezondheidstechnologieën

During the various surveys, much valuable information was gathered to develop the service model. Without stakeholder involvement, current processes, problems in care and preferences regarding future implementation could not be identified. Want to learn more about RE-SAMPLE's service model development? You can see a video below that explains the entire process of service model development in detail.

Would you like to see this process explained in Dutch? Then click on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-PkshYyHMI

Do you want to learn more about service modelling in general or do you want to know what the options are for your organisation? Feel free to contact RRD! We can potentially help each other out and offer the help you need.

Eline te Braake

Email: e.tebraake@rrd.nl

Tel: 088 087 5734

01/26/2023

Good Clinical Practice guidelines: Our way of work

Written by: Stephanie Jansen-Kosterink

As you can read on our website, Roessingh Research and Development (RRD) conducts scientific research into innovative healthcare technology with a focus on the end-user. Part of our research falls under the heading of medical-scientific research. This type of research is subject to national and international laws and regulations, such as the Medical Research Involving Human Subjects Act (WMO) and the Medical Devices Regulation (MDR).

At RRD, all researchers are in possession of a WMO-GCP registration. In 2015, I was one of the first at RRD to follow an external multi-day training to participate in the WMO-GCP exam. The training was very interesting. Much was known, especially the submission of a research protocol to a medical ethics review committee (MERC), but much was also unknown. What was new to me was the information about conducting medical research, such as the requirements of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all parts of your research. The exam was very difficult. It had been years since I had taken an exam and the focus was mostly on the details. But luckily, the result was positive and I received my WMO-GCP registration. That was not the end of it. This registration is valid for 3 years, which means that every 3 years a re-registration is needed. The WMO-GCP re-registration deals with the WMO, Good Clinical Practice (GCP) guidelines, ISO14155 standard for research with medical devices and specific matters in the field of research involving human subjects, including the latest changes.

My registration was still valid until January 2023 and re-registration was required again. Wednesday 7 December, I was invited to Heeze and during the train journey to the south of the Netherlands I completed the WMO-GCP re-registration e-learning of the Tapas Group. I arrived at the certification questions when the train finally arrived at Eindhoven CS. Fortunately, all questions were correct and my registration was a fact!

Much of the research we conduct at RRD is scientific, but not always medical. Nevertheless, we choose to approach all our research in the first instance as medical-scientific. When we are sure that the research does not fall under the WMO, we always verify this with the METC East Netherlands. Even if it does not fall under the WMO, we continue to follow the GCP guidelines.

Are preparing research yourself, such as testing an intervention or a medical device? We will be happy to help you to draw up the research protocol and supervise the medical ethics review!

Stephanie Jansen-Kosterink

Email: s.jansen@rrd.nl

Tel: 088 087 5717

01/19/2023

PhD defense Robert Schulte: Up to one's knees in data

Written by: Marian Hurmuz

Data-driven intent recognition using electromyography (EMG) has the potential to make actuated prosthesis more intuitive. Although electromyography has its challenges, it also forms an opportunity to realize more intuitive control of prostheses through intent recognition. Robert Schulte aimed to investigate data-driven intent recognition strategies in the lower-limb using EMG. Last week Thursday (8th of December, 2022), Robert defended his PhD thesis, which you can find here Finding.

His thesis covers the following topics:

Developing and validating a synchronisation method for wearable motion capture and EMG measurement systems.
Collecting a large database of kinematic and EMG data, MyPredict, containing 55 participants measured in 85 measurement moments.
Investigating the use of genetic algorithms to construct optimised feature sets to be used in lower limb prosthetic control.
Investigating whether concept drift is an issue in lower limb pattern recognition.
Comparing three adaptation approaches to circumvent the concept drift: entropy-based, based on backward prediction, and a combination of the two.
Comparing three modelling frameworks to estimate knee torque in non-weight-bearing situations: convolutional neural network (CNN), neuromusculoskeletal model (NMS), and a hybrid model of both.

Robert ends his thesis by concluding that data-driven intent recognition has the potential to make prostheses more intuitive, thereby possibly leading to better prosthesis control.

We are very proud of Robert and his hard work at RRD! With ending his PhD, there is no end to working with data. Robert started working at Datavibes in Gouda as a Data Engineer/Data Scientist. He continues working with data, but now in a less scientific environment. We wish him the best of luck in his future career!

12/15/2022