EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)—A team of researchers from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso and the University of Texas at El Paso have received a $40,000 grant from Sobel-Duncan Border Health Research Award to study chronic ankle instability, a condition disproportionately impacting the Borderplex region.<\/p>\n
Colby Genrich, Family and Sports Medicine physician at Texas Tech said ankle sprains are among the most common musculoskeletal injuries in the United States, with roughly 1 million cases each year. About 70% of those cases develop into chronic ankle instability, a condition marked by the sensation that the ankle may \u201cgive out.\u201d <\/p>\n
Researchers say the region\u2019s largely Hispanic population faces additional barriers to effective diagnosis, including language and literacy challenges. Clinicians currently rely on questionnaires to diagnose the condition, which can be difficult for patients who primarily speak Spanish or have limited health literacy.<\/p>\n
A new smartphone-based tool uses artificial intelligence to improve the diagnosis of\u00a0chronic\u00a0ankle\u00a0instability. The technology uses biomechanical analysis to assess walking patterns, which differ significantly in patients with chronic ankle instability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this biomechanical analysis tool, we can quantitatively analyze gait patterns,\u201d Jaeho Jang- Assistant professor at UTEP said. \u201cPatients with chronic ankle instability walk differently than healthy individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n
The app is designed to help clinicians predict whether a patient will develop ankle instability weeks, months or even years after an initial sprain. Experts say it could eventually extend to diagnosing other joint and musculoskeletal conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can start looking at hips, backs, wrists things patients complain about every day,\u201d Genrich said. \u201cWearables might help diagnose injuries before they even happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Researchers expect the technology to be available by August 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)—A team of researchers from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-51589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}