Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Elucidating psychological and social risk factors for low back pain in highly physically active adolescents: a case study in female pre-professional dancers." "Nathalie Roussel" "Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA), Movement Antwerp (MOVANT)" "The general purpose of this study is to elucidate psychological and social risk factors for low back pain (LBP) in highly physically active adolescents. Using a qualitative research design, we will explore perceived causes (psychological and social) of LBP using female pre-professional dancers as a case study. This will lay the foundation for fundamental prospective studies examining causes of LBP in adolescents. Low back pain (LBP) is the leading cause of disability worldwide. The prevalence of LBP rapidly increases during adolescence, especially in females. The multidimensional nature (including biological, psychological and social factors) of LBP is widely recognized in adults, but has, despite the fact that LBP during adolescence is a risk factor for spinal pain in adulthood, rarely been investigated in adolescents. Elite adolescent dancers are a model population to unravel the etiology of adolescent LBP as they are a homogenous group that is highly physically active and that is at risk for developing LBP. The novelty of our approach is the unraveling of LBP from a multidisciplinary perspective in adolescents at risk for developing LBP in a challenging period of their life. The proposed qualitative methodology will allow to explore these factors in more depth, as validated questionnaires to examine psychological and social factors in adolescent dancers are lacking. The collaboration in this project between several disciplines will allow to obtain a more detailed insight in the person as a whole, including a great part of the individual and contextual factors underlying the etiology of LBP in highly active adolescents. More importantly, the results of the project will lay the foundation for the continuation of the research in the etiology of LBP in dancers and adolescents." "Balance control in young children: a synergistic approach combining functional assessment and neuromechanics to unravel balance control mechanisms." "Ann Hallemans" "Movement Antwerp (MOVANT)" "Adequate balance control is a prerequisite to achieve postures in early life and more complex gross and fine motor skills later in childhood. Balance deficits are a common problem in children with various pathologies such as cerebral palsy, developmental coordination disorder or sensorineural hearing loss. Because of the potential impact of these balance deficits on motor development, they need to be detected early in childhood. However, balance control is complex and comprises different mechanisms such as predictive, proactive and reactive control. At present none of the available paediatric balance tests comprehend to total concept of balance control. Most tests have been focussing on balance control in static and predictable environments, ignoring the contribution of reactive balance mechanisms. This is an underrepresentation of the daily life situation involving object interactions and changing physical environments. Therefore, the aim of this project is to develop an integrated approach of assessing balance in 5 to 7 year old children covering the entire concept of balance control. A synergistic approach, combining functional assessment methods of balance performance with more in-depth neuromechanical analysis will be used. Neuromechanics focusses on the interplay between the neural processes (e.g. reaction times) and the mechanical aspects of balance control (e.g. amount of sway) unravelling balance control strategies that might otherwise remain hidden. In this way, fundamental insights will be gained into the construct of balance control and the contribution of the different mechanisms in 5 to 7 year old children. These insights will result in a validated test that allows the clinician to identify overall balance deficits as well as the specific domains of balance control that are disturbed. Identification of these domains allows for specific physiotherapeutic intervention planning. Furthermore, the better understanding of balance control mechanisms in young children will open new horizons for research regarding the contribution of balance control deficits to developmental (motor) problems in children." "iNNOCENS: data driven clinical decision support for improved neonatal care." "Kris Laukens" "Laboratory Experimental Medicine and Pediatrics (LEMP), ADReM Data Lab (ADReM)" "Analysis of patient related vital parameters generated in a continuous manner on a neonatal intensive care department offers the opportunity to develop computational models that can predict care-related complications. This project aims to develop a machine learning model that can predict acquired brain injury of prematurity. The model can than be implemented to generate bedside visualizations in the context of a self-learning digital early warning system." "Motor learning and physical fitness in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder" "Katrijn KLINGELS" "Rehabilitation Research Center, South African College" "The Research Council of Hasselt University approved the stay of drs. Emmanuel Bonney (University of Cape Town, South Africa), provided he obtains his PhD degree. During this stay, drs. Emmanuel Bonney will perform research in cooperation with your research group REVAL." "Sensitisation profiles to nonspecific-lipid transfer proteins (ns-LTP): gaining insights into the kaleidoscope of IgE reactivity profiles and clinical phenotypes." "Margo Hagendorens" "Immunology, Laboratory Experimental Medicine and Pediatrics (LEMP)" "Nonspecific-lipid transfer proteins (ns-LTPs) have increasingly been recognized to constitute a significant cause of plant food allergy. Sensitization to ns-LTPs was predominantly observed in adults and appeared mainly associated with severe generalized reactions. However, we established that in northern Europe sensitization to ns-LTP can also occur in children and that the sensitization profile assessed by quantification of specific IgE antibodies is not predictive for the clinical phenotype. We hypothesize that a more functional approach with basophil activation experiments (BAT) could be of better predictive value to ascertain the clinical relevance of a sensitization to ns-LTP, as basophil activation requires cross-linking of IgE/FcεRI complexes and therefore more closely mirrors the in vivo situation.We aim at deciphering the clinical relevance of a sensitization to two ns-LTP, i.e. Pru p 3 from peach (Prunus persica) and Mal d 3 (Malus domesticus) from apple, by applying basophil activatation experiments, which might enter mainstream diagnostics as an instrument to discriminate between clinical relevant and irrelevant ns-LTP sensitization. Additionally, the functional activity of so-called blocking IgG4 antibodies will be evaluated." "Muscle fatigability in upper limb strength tasks in children with cerebral palsy." "Katrijn KLINGELS" "Rehabilitation Research Center" "This proposal aims at investigating muscle fatigability in upper limb strength tasks in children with cerebral palsy (CP). The main reason for this research is that children with CP have difficulties in using their arms and hands due to decreased muscle strength. Most problems in arm and hand functioning arise in sustained muscle strength tasks, like holding on to objects, which implicates that muscle fatigability may also play a role. Muscle fatigability can be defined as a reduction in muscle force-generating capacity in the neuromuscular system that occurs during prolonged or ongoing activity. The proposed research contains four major aims. The first aim is to gain insight in literature on muscle fatigability in pediatric populations. The second aim is to identify a calculation to quantitatively evaluate muscle fatigability in these children. The third aim is to evaluate whether children with CP are more fatigable than typically developing children, to profile muscle fatigability in children with CP and to identify the impact of fatigability on upper limb activities and participation. The fourth aim is to identify aspects of known interventions in children with CP that may have an effect on muscle fatigability and to gain preliminary insight in the effectiveness of the identified aspects of interventions on muscle fatigability in children with CP. These insights in the phenomenon of muscle fatigability in children with CP will result in optimizing treatment interventions." "Validation and clinical use of computer assisted lung sound analyses (CALSA) in cystic fibrosis patients and patients with neuromuscular diseases using functional respiratory imaging." "Movement Antwerp (MOVANT), Laboratory Experimental Medicine and Pediatrics (LEMP)" "Many respiratory diseases require a physiotherapeutic treatment whit a focus on clearance of excessive mucus from the airways. Although patients report a subjective benefit, there is little objective evidence regarding the effect of airway clearance techniques. This contradiction exists due to a lack of good outcome measures that are specifically related to the interventions employed. Electronic auscultation coupled with computerized lung sound analysis (CALSA) has the potential to improve the clinical evaluation of pulmonary disorders in both clinical and research settings. In other words, CALSA could be a valid instrument for the evaluation of physiotherapeutic treatments. In this project, we want to validate CALSA and recorded lung sounds in patients with cystic fibrosis and neuromuscular diseases by comparing it with CT-based functional respiratory imaging. In the second part, we want to evaluate the effect of airway clearance techniques by using changes in CALSA and comparing it with classic outcome measures." "Objectivation of the pre-walking locomotor behaviour: a pilot study." "Peter Aerts" "Functional Morphology" "Not all children learn to crawl on hands and knees. Some of them show other patterns of locomotion, like bottomshuffling, creeping or rolling. It is assumed that these children show a weaker coordination between legs and arms andshoulder- and pelvisgirdle. The aim of this study is (1) examine whether there is a correlation between developmentalfactors and different crawling patterns and (2) to develop a method to measure the crawling coordination in an objectiveway."