t’s the time of the year again; all first and second years are working hard to finish their SER and the third years are finalising their bachelor thesis to prepare for graduation. Kwan Suppaiboonsuk is one of them and presented her bachelor thesis on Monday, June 19.
Kwan worked on her thesis at the Biomedical Signals and Systems research group. The topic involved a technological solution to improve the walking pattern of people suffering from knee osteoarthritis. Kwan on her topic: “Osteoarthritis is becoming a larger problem with an ageing population. Current interventions include injections, surgery or physical therapy. However, current therapy is done in laboratories and not widely applicable. Therefore, I investigated the possibilities of a rehabilitation training involving portable sensors and a HoloLens projecting feedback in front of an osteoarthritis patient to reduce his knee load.”
Kwan based the feedback on the angle of the foot with respect to the walking direction. The project involved writing the code that would provide this feedback and testing it with healthy subjects. “Despite all the problems I encountered during debugging code, I am happy with how it went. I am proud that I managed to write code and see it working during the experiment.” Finally, the results showed potential for this type of rehabilitation training and the Biomedical Signals and Systems group will most likely continue with the work Kwan has done.
So, what’s next? Kwan: “I am still unsure about what I want to do next year. I might work at the start-up company VRehab that Tim Brinkman is part of, but if that does not work out I will look for another opportunity. I do not want to start my master’s right away; I want to gain more experience outside the university and form my own opinion on important matters.” But first graduation; the Class of 2017 will celebrate their accomplishments on July 8.
University College Twente offers a unique bachelor’s programme, Technology, Liberal, Arts and Sciences, to top students. Visit the University College Twente website for more information about the college and Technology, Liberal, Arts and Sciences website for more information about the bachelor program. Or visit us during the open day, a student-for-a-day or an insight-day.
