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Revised-Thesis_Pegah Jamali
Embargoed Access, Embargo ends: 01/31/2031
Dissertation
Neuromechanical Adaptations During Pregnancy and Their Impact on Obstacle Avoidance and Tripping
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
2025
Abstract
Falls during pregnancy occur at a 25% rate, with tripping being one of the major causes. To prevent trips, we rely on neurocognitive processes which may change during pregnancy and affect obstacle avoidance. The first aim of this research was to examine how pregnancy alters neurocognition and obstacle crossing behavior and whether these changes are linked. The second aim was to test the biofidelity of musculoskeletal models, that would allow for analyzing muscle activity. These models require body segment masses and ground reaction forces (GRFs) as input parameters. Since pregnancy introduces significant mass changes, it is essential to assess whether inverse dynamic calculation models remain reliable under significant body segment mass changes. Results showed that foot clearance over obstacles decreased as pregnancy progressed, increasing the risk of tripping. However, pregnant individuals adapted by shifting their reliance to different cognitive processes, with an overall increase in neurocognitive involvement for safe obstacle crossing throughout gestation, supporting the potential for fall risk prediction based on cognitive factors. Validity testing showed that GRF estimation inputs were accurate in the sagittal plane but less accurate in the medio-lateral direction. Sensitivity analyses revealed that even with significant mass changes, model predictions for GRFs and joint kinetics remained reliable. These findings lay the groundwork for developing musculoskeletal models of pregnant individuals that rely on estimation-based contact force inputs and generalized anthropometric parameters to enable accurate inverse dynamics analyses during pregnancy. Pregnancy musculoskeletal models can further enable examining muscular contributions to obstacle avoidance and falls. Understanding neuromuscular (neurocognitive and muscular) adaptations during pregnancy sets the stage for creating tailored prenatal care plans and may help clinicians detect high-risk individuals and take steps to minimize the health consequences of falls.
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Details
- Title
- Neuromechanical Adaptations During Pregnancy and Their Impact on Obstacle Avoidance and Tripping
- Creators
- Pegah Jamali
- Contributors
- Robert R.D.C. Catena (Advisor)Lloyd L.V.S. Smith (Committee Member)Anita A.V. Vasavada (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 175
- Identifiers
- 99901357897501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation