This is a past event.

KIP Seminar Series
Tanvi Bhatt, PhD
Department of Physical Therapy
University of Illinois - Chicago

Refreshments provided.

Abstract

Perturbation training is an emerging, task-specific intervention that exposes
individuals to self- or externally- generated perturbations, entraining proactive and reactive
control mechanisms for fall prevention. Dr. Bhatt will describe perturbation-based prevention
training in inducing proactive & reactive adaptations to externally induced mechanical
perturbations and present evidence from lab-based clinical trials in healthy, aging and
neurological populations. Specifically, she will discuss the generalization of training across limbs,
functional tasks, training devices, opposing types of perturbations and real-life contexts. She
will also present evidence dosing of perturbation-based training and discuss gaps/barriers in
the field and future opportunities.

Biography

Dr. Bhatt is the director of the Cognitive, Motor and Balance Rehabilitation
Laboratory. Dr. Bhatt’s research interest and expertise is in field of adaptive perturbation
training for fall prevention. Her research involves investigating neuromechanical basis of
balance recovery from external perturbations such as slips and trips and subsequently
designing intervention paradigms for reducing fall-risk in healthy and pathological
populations. Dr. Bhatt has nearly 70 peer-reviewed publications and has been extramurally
funded since 2011. Currently she is the principle investigator of three NIH R01 grants
pertaining to perturbation training for fall-risk prevention and recipient of the UIC’s Rising Star
Researcher of the Year.