We couldn’t miss celebrating the mother of gait analysis!
Jacquelin Perry was born on May 31st 1918 in Denver, Colorado, USA. She was the first woman to graduate in orthopedic surgery from the University of San Francisco, California.
When she found herself obliged to stop working as an orthopedic surgeon because of health issues, she brushed up her skills in physiotherapy and set up a gait laboratory at the Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in California.
With her analytic approach and her mantra “always ask why”, she became a role model in the biomechanics of human gait and movement. She developed a systematic method for the observational analysis of gait deviations to guide treatment but she also contributed to development of instrumental systems: her contribution allowed building the first motion capture system in a department of rehabilitation medicine in the USA.
Her publications, renowned for their rigorous scientific standards, reflect her interest for patients with many morbidities, such as cerebral palsy, stroke, spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, and poliomyelitis. Her textbook “Gait Analysis: Normal and Pathological Function” was published in 1992 and is still a milestone for health professionals in the rehabilitation field.
Dr. Perry, who later developed Parkinson’s disease, continued practicing into her nineties until 2013.
MerloBioEngineering celebrates Dr. Perry, a visionary pioneer in the rehabilitation sciences.
She paved the way for new discoveries that now allow clinicians to perform accurate assessments and provide patients with the best available treatments, according to individualized rehabilitation and surgery planning.
With our software development and research activities, MBE seeks to further increase knowledge in the field of motion analysis. You can request a demo version of our software or contact us for information at the appropriate link.
Written by M. Chiara Bò, PT – MerloBioEngineering
