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Staff Profile

Dr Lizeth Sloot

Newcastle University Academic Track (NUAcT) Fellow: Ageing and Health

  • Email: lizeth.sloot@ncl.ac.uk
  • Address: Translational and Clinical Research Institute (NUTCRI)
    Campus for Ageing and Vitality (CAV campus)
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE4 5PL
Background

I am an experimental biomechanist (or human movement scientist) driven to understanding how balance and motion impairments should be assessed and treated to enable everyone to remain mobile and independent into old age. As populations age, and more people live with long-term consequences of stroke and multiple chronic conditions, there is a growing need for effective fall training, rehabilitation programmes and assistive devices. These interventions must address the complex combination of motor impairments that often co-exist, including balance dysfunction, muscle weakness, and disrupted motion control. My research focuses on developing accurate and sensitive measurement tools to capture these impairments and enable effective, personalised intervention.

I lead the Foot And Balance (FAB) team, which advances dynamic balance and movement analysis by studying how foot-floor interactions stabilise the body during real-life movements. To maximise impact, we engage with stakeholder, such as patients and clinicians, and embrace open science by sharing our datasets and models (see Research section below). By translating our findings into new quantitative clinical tools, we can work with interdisciplinary partners towards a preventative approach to falls: early identification (before the first fall), accessible monitoring, and individualised training for fall-prone persons in ageing and age-related conditions.

I currently hold a Newcastle University Academic Track (NUAcT) Fellowship and a Rosetrees & Stoneygate Fellowship at the Translational and Clinical Research Institute (TCRI). I am part of the diverse group of researchers in the Brain and Movement (BAM) Research Group. Previously, I studied individualised soft-robotic walking support for stroke survivors at the Biodesign lab at Harvard University and markers of age-related motion decline at Heidelberg University. During my PhD at VU University Amsterdam, I developed quantitative methods for assessing spasticity.

In addition to leading the FAB team, I serve on the board of the Clinical Movement Analysis Society of the UK and Ireland (CMAS). I have founded and, until recently, led the Early Career Network of the European Society for Movement analysis in Adults and Children (ECN ESMAC).

Areas of expertise: gait analysis, balance, stability, postural control, sit-to-stand, ageing, assistive devices

Education & Research Career

  • Rosetrees and Stoneygate Research Fellow at Newcastle University (2023+)
  • Newcastle University Academic Track (NUAcT) Fellow in Ageing and Health (2023+)
  • Postdoc at University of Heidelberg (Germany), Institute of Computer Engineering (2021-2023)
  • Postdoc at Harvard University, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (20216-2019)
  • PhD in Biomechanics (cum laude), VU University Amsterdam (2016)
  • Research MSc in Medical Natural Sciences, specialisation Medical Physics (cum laude), VU University Amsterdam (2011)
  • BSc in Medical Natural Sciences, VU University Amsterdam (2008)

Selected Honours & Awards

  • NUAcT Fellowship (2023) and Rosetrees & Stoneygate Fellowship (2023)
  • Elite Postdoc Program of the State of Baden-Württemberg (2021)
  • Promising Scientist Award from the International Society of Biomechanics (2021)
  • Best Paper Award, European Society of Movement Analysis in Adults and Children (2020)
  • Ter Meulen Fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016)
  • Best Paper Award, European Society of Movement Analysis in Adults and Children (2014)

Please see my ORCID profile for further details. 

Research

My research aims to advance the theoretical and experimental tools needed to understand motor and balance dysfunction. For most of us, being mobile is a given. We rarely notice how often we rise from a chair or how many steps we take each day. Yet for older adults and people with neurodegenerative disease, these everyday actions can become challenging and unsafe.

With my FABulous (Foot And Balance) team, I develop new measurement protocols, instruments, models and analyses to quantify balance and mobility impairments. Our work integrates biomechanics, neurophysiology, and real-world movement analysis to better understand why balance fails and how falls occur in ageing and disease. We collaborate with clinical and engineering partners to translate our findings into practice and inform the development of novel interventions, from individualised support from robotic devices to perturbation-based fall prevention training.

Currently, I focus on the following research areas:

  • Foot-floor interactions: we develop new instruments and algorithms to quantify how our feet interact with the floor and how this interaction contributes to balance dysfunction. This is important as foot-floor interactions define our support area to maintain balance and are fundamental to agile, safe movements.
  • Balance domains: we take a holistic approach to balance decline by evaluating postural control during standing, dynamic balance during movement, balance recovery from external perturbations and anticipatory balance adjustment in parallel. This allows us to identify mechanisms underlying falls that are missed by single-task assessments.
  • Real-life: we study balance across a wide range of daily activities and in near-fall (perturbed) scenarios (see data sets below). Our work shows that balance impairments emerge during complex (more challenging) daily movements that were undetected during typical tests of walking or standing.
  • Translation: a key goal of our research is to develop clinical tools to identify persons at risk of falling and support the design of targeted, evidence-based interventions.

To this end, we integrate multimodal data, including: full-body motion tracking, ground reaction forces and plantar pressure, muscle activity (EMG), physiological signals and subjective perception. We use different perturbation treadmills to study muscle responses and balance recovery during different movements.

Research team:

  • Mrs Nikita Sharma, PhD student
  • Mrs Liyi Chen, PhD student
  • Ruijie Fan, PhD student

Data sharing and open-source code:

Our datasets are in the same format, enabling easy merging and analyses in Matlab:

  • Walking data in 138 adults across the life span (motion, force, EMG) - collaboration with University of Antwerp
  • Motion data across daily tasks in 100 young and older adults (motion, force) - in development with Heidelberg University & KIT
  • Motion data across perturbed daily tasks in 60 young and older adults (IMU) - in development with Heidelberg University

Our models and code for balance analysis:

  • functional Base of Support (fBOS) models for young and older adults. These can be retrospectively attached to PiG or IOR foot marker data using our example data and functions (GitHub) - collaboration Dr. Matthew Millard, University of Stuttgart
  • Margin-of-stability balance analysis adapted to sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit motions - Dr. Matthew Millard, University of Stuttgart 

For a list of publications, see ResearchGate or GoogleScholar.

Teaching

I work with (visiting) undergraduate, Masters, PhD, Erasmus and Summer Project students to perform research projects with me. Please see my list of ongoing research projects and collaborations under ‘Research’ to get an idea of potential projects. Interested students should get in touch.

Teaching / Supervision:

  • BMS2014 – Biology of Ageing (Biomedical Sciences)
  • BMS3017 – Clinical Ageing and Health (Biomedical Sciences)
  • SES1003 – Introduction to Biomechanics (Sports Sciences)
  • SES3000 – UG Research Project (Sports Sciences)

PhD student supervision:

  • Liyi Chen (NUAcT): the functional base of support to improve balance analysis
  • Nikita Sharma (EPP): age-related decline in balance recovery across daily movements (Heidelberg University)
  • Ruijie Fan: effect of surface vibrations on motion and balance (primary supervisor: Sigong Zhang)
Publications