June 2016 edition 26
ihbi
Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation
IN THIS ISSUE
ADVANCES Individual patient focus in emerging medical model Childhood a focus of new IHBI research appointment Collaborative effort has schizophrenia in its sights Studies aim to improve eye transplant success rates Saliva shows potential for monitoring athlete health Executive Director’s report
This image: The NordBord Image right: Dr Anthony Shield
World sporting teams line up to use invention based on IHBI research The ultimate measure of success for researchers is to see their invention used around the world. IHBI researcher Dr Anthony Shield is achieving such success with his hamstring testing system, now being sent to major sporting teams in Europe, the US and Australia. Dr Shield invented and built a portable prototype of the NordBord to measure the strength of an athlete’s hamstrings. He then set out with former PhD student David Opar to determine whether weaker football players were more likely than strong ones to sustain a hamstring injury.
“In competitions such as the English Premier League, players are paid enormous sums of money. Clubs can’t afford to have the players sitting on the sideline with an injury. Hamstring strains cost millions of pounds a year.”
Dr Shield’s research continues at IHBI, with a focus on hamstrings and the impacts of injury, ageing and resistance training. He still collaborates with Dr Opar, who now conducts research at the Australian Catholic University.
Along with information such as prior injury history and age, NordBord strength measurements can help determine which players are at high risk of hamstring tears while also serving to review progress in training and during the recovery from injury.
The NordBord is based on a well-known hamstring exercise, the nordic curl. It tests eccentric strength, the amount of force that a muscle can generate while it lengthens. Injuries are known to most frequently occur among athletes with poor eccentric strength or strength imbalances between limbs.
The research focus for Dr Shield has shifted to the effects of prior hamstring injury on muscle activation and architecture.
“Hamstring strains are the number one injury in AFL,” Dr Shield says. “It is the number one injury in soccer and it is among the most frequent in cricket and rugby.
Sensors in the NordBord combine with data capture software to enable clinicians, coaches and high performance staff to accurately determine the hamstring strength of each player.
WHY SET UP A SPIN-OFF COMPANY? They make use of university technologies that might otherwise go undeveloped and provide a mechanisms for involving the inventor of the technology in the process of commercialisation. HOW ARE UNIVERSITY SPIN-OFFS CREATED? Funding from the governments, industry and foundations are used to support scholarly research in science and engineering. Some of the research results in the creation of new technology that is then brought to the attention of the university. The university technologylicensing office may decide to seek intellectual property protection for the invention and move to license the technology.
Thirteen English Premier League clubs, including recent surprise winners Leicester City, are using the NordBoard, along with 12 AFL clubs, five Rugby World Cup national teams, six NRL teams and five different National Institutes of Sport. It is also being sent to European soccer teams, universities and teams in the National Football League, National Collegiate Athletic Association and Major League Baseball in the US. QUT spin-off company Vald Performance manufactures the NordBord in Brisbane. Vald Performance was set up with support from QUT’s technology transfer company qutbluebox and last year received a Federal Government Accelerating Commercialisation grant of $493 000 to aid the commercialisation process. Vald Performance chief executive officer Laurie Malone, chief technology officer Sam James and operations director Christopher Rowe are all QUT graduates, while Dr Shield and Dr Opar maintain advisory roles at the company.
Pain and inactivity among injured athletes can cause neuromuscular inhibition. The inhibition is a potential mechanism for several maladaptations linked to hamstring re-injury, including persistent eccentric hamstring weakness, muscle atrophy and the shortening of muscle fascicles. “There is evidence that athletes returning to competition after hamstring injury with maladaptations are predisposed to further injury,” Dr Shield says. Athletes recovering from hamstring injuries, especially those who have potentially developed maladaptations, need to undertake exercises such as stiff-legged deadlifts or the nordic curl because the eccentric muscle contractions involved build a damage resistance in the muscle, he says. “When athletes have greater eccentric strength in the hamstrings they will have a greater resistance to damage of these fibres. Greater levels of eccentric strength will also help to minimise injury risk during fatiguing running such as during game play.”