Scott Delp: Better gait, better life

A biomechanical engineer explains how new diagnostics and improved understanding of human movement are yielding great leaps forward in the treatment of motor dysfunction. Engineer Scott Delp first got interested in the details of human movement when he was injured in a skiing accident and spent five years trying to recover. Back then, today’s powerful diagnostic tools, like MRI, weren’t generally available, and Delp experienced many roadblocks and false starts in his recovery. Delp turned that challenging experience into a career studying and developing new approaches to motor dysfunction that he puts to use helping people with conditions like osteoarthritis and cerebral palsy to walk, run and move more easily and without pain. His multidisciplinary team includes surgeons, neurologists, roboticists, engineers and computer scientists who use sophisticated computer models to analyze movement dysfunction and to counteract them through surgery, robotics, neurostimulation and other techniques, including the use of Botox. Delp’s latest focus is on discovering approaches that inspire patients to see better movement as key to better health and view physical rehab not merely as necessary, but actually enjoyable. Join host Russ Altman and expert in the biomechanics of human movement Scott Delp for a “moving” discussion about the joys and the benefits of motion here on The Future of Everything radio show from Sirius XM. You can listen to The Future of Everything on Sirius XM Insight Channel 121, iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher or via Stanford Engineering Magazine.