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- All Subjects: Falls
- Creators: Harrington Bioengineering Program
- Creators: Fauer, Chase Alexander
- Creators: Han, Priscilla
- Creators: Pal, Amrita
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Polymer drug delivery system offers a key to a glaring issue in modern administration routes of drugs and biologics. Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) can be used to encapsulate drugs and biologics and deliver them into the patient, which allows high local concentration (compared to current treatment methods), protection of the cargo from the bodily environment, and reduction in systemic side effects. This experiment used a single emulsion technique to encapsulate L-tyrosine in PLGA microparticles and UV spectrophotometry to analyze the drug release over a period of one week. The release assay found that for the tested samples, the released amount is distinct initially, but is about the same after 4 days, and they generally follow the same normalized percent released pattern. The experiment could continue with testing more samples, test the same samples for a longer duration, and look into higher w/w concentrations such as 20% or 50%.
The goal of this research project is to create a Mathcad template file capable of statistically modelling the effects of mean and standard deviation on a microparticle batch characterized by the log normal distribution model. Such a file can be applied during manufacturing to explore tolerances and increase cost and time effectiveness. Theoretical data for the time to 60% drug release and the slope and intercept of the log-log plot were collected and subjected to statistical analysis in JMP. Since the scope of this project focuses on microparticle surface degradation drug release with no drug diffusion, the characteristic variables relating to the slope (n = diffusional release exponent) and the intercept (k = kinetic constant) do not directly apply to the distribution model within the scope of the research. However, these variables are useful for analysis when the Mathcad template is applied to other types of drug release models.
Falls are known to be a common occurrence and a costly one as well, as they are the second leading cause of unintentional deaths and millions of other injuries worldwide. Falls often occur due to an increase in trunk flexion angle, so this experiment aims to reduce the trunk flexion received while stepping over an obstacle. To achieve this a soft actuator was attached to the trunk and pressure was sent as subjects walked and stepped over an obstacle presented on a treadmill. The pressure is meant to stiffen the back which should in theory reduce the trunk flexion angle and lower the chances of falling. In this experiment, two groups were tested: three participants from a control group (healthy young adults) and three participants from an experimental group (healthy elderly adults). Since elderly adults have the highest fall risk due to overall lack of stability, they are the experimental group and the focus for this experiment. The results from the study showed that elderly adults had a beneficial effect with the soft actuator as there was a noticeable difference in trunk flexion when the device was attached. The experiment also supported prior research that stated that trunk flexion was greater in elderly adults than younger adults. Despite the positive results, further studies should be done to prove that the soft devices influence lowering trunk flexion angle as well as to see if the device has any noticeable effect on younger adults.