Staff Profile

I am an experimental biomechanist with the main goal of understanding motor and balance dysfunction in people with limited mobility. There is an increasing demand for assistive devices and rehabilitation programs as more people survive a stroke, live with chronic disorders or grow old and frail. These people present with a wide range of motor problems, such as muscle weakness, impaired balance or disrupted control of motion. My work focuses on developing more detailed assessments of movement and balance to identify underlying impairments more accurately.

I currently hold a Newcastle University Academic Track (NUAcT) fellowship and a Rosetrees & Stoneygate fellowship in the Translational and Clinical Research Institute (TCRI). Previously I led positions at Heidelberg University (my group) and at the Biodesign lab at Harvard University. I was awarded my PhD by the VU University in 2016 where I worked on technologies to assess motor dysfunction in children with cerebral palsy.

My research aims to improve the theoretical and experimental tools we have to understand motor and balance dysfunction in people with limited mobility. For most people, being mobile is a given. We don’t realize how often we get out of a chair or how many steps we take to get through our days. I work with other groups to inform the development and evaluation of robotic assistive devices and individualized fall prevention training to contribute towards improving and maintaining mobility in people with limitations. For a list of publications, see ResearchGate or GoogleScholar.

I work with Masters, PhD and Summer Project students to perform research projects with me. Interested students should get in touch.

• Articles

  • Gerhardy TH, Schlomann A, Wahl H-W, Mombaur K, Sloot LH, Schmidt LI. Aging in 10 Minutes: Do Age Simulation Suits Mimic Physical Decline in Old Age? Comparing Experimental Data with Established Reference Data. Experimental Aging Research 2024, epub ahead of print.
  • Van Criekinge T, Hallemans A, Van de Walle P, Sloot LH. Age- and sex-related differences in trunk kinematics during walking in able-bodied adults. GeroScience 2024, 46(2), 2545-2559.
  • Herzog M, Krafft FC, Stetter BJ, d'Avella A, Sloot LH, Stein T. Rollator usage lets young individuals switch movement strategies in sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit tasks. Scientific Reports 2023, 13(1), 16901.
  • Hezel N, Sloot LH, Wanner P, Becker C, Bauer JM, Steib S, Werner C. Feasibility, effectiveness and acceptability of two perturbation-based treadmill training protocols to improve reactive balance in fall-prone older adults (FEATURE): protocol for a pilot randomised controlled trial. BMJ Open 2023, 13(9), e073135.
  • Sloot LH, Baker LM, Bae J, Porciuncula F, Clement BF, Siviy C, Nuckols RW, Baker T, Sloutsky R, Choe DK, O'Donnell K, Ellis TD, Awad LN, Walsh CJ. Effects of a soft robotic exosuit on the quality and speed of overground walking depends on walking ability after stroke. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation 2023, 20(1), 113.
  • Van Criekinge T, Saeys W, Truijen S, Vereeck L, Sloot LH, Hallemans A. A full-body motion capture gait dataset of 138 able-bodied adults across the life span and 50 stroke survivors. Scientific Data 2023, 10(1), 852.
  • Krafft FC, Herzog M, Stein T, Sloot LH. Young Individuals Are More Stable and Stand More Upright When Using Rollator Assistance During Standing up and Sitting Down. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology 2022, 10, 876349.
  • Sloot L, Bae J, Baker L, O'Donnell K, Menard N, Porciuncula F, Choe D, Ellis T, Awad L, Walsh C. O 089 - A soft robotic exosuit assisting the paretic ankle in patients post-stroke: Effect on muscle activation during overground walking. Gait and Posture 2022, 95, 217-218.
  • Bruijn SM, Sloot LH, Kingma I, Pijnappels M. Contribution of arm movements to balance recovery after tripping in older adults. Journal of Biomechanics 2022, 133, 110981.
  • Flux E, van der Krogt MM, Harlaar J, Buizer AI, Sloot LH. Functional assessment of stretch hyperreflexia in children with cerebral palsy using treadmill perturbations. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation 2021, 18(1), 151.
  • Sloot LH, Malheiros S, Truijen S, Saeys W, Mombaur K, Hallemans A, van Criekinge T. Decline in gait propulsion in older adults over age decades. Gait and Posture 2021, 90, 475-482.
  • Sloot LH, Weide G, van der Krogt MM, Desloovere K, Harlaar J, Buizer AI, Bar-On L. Applying Stretch to Evoke Hyperreflexia in Spasticity Testing: Velocity vs. Acceleration. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology 2021, 8, 591004.

• Book Chapter

  • Sloot LH, Millard M, Werner C, Mombaur K. Effect of Rollator Assistance on Sit-to-Stand Balance in Older Adults. In: Biosystems & Biorobotics. Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, 2022, pp.127-132.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)

  • Marinou G, Sloot L, Mombaur K. Towards efficient lower-limb exoskeleton evaluation: Defining biomechanical metrics to quantify assisted gait familiarization. In: Proceedings of the IEEE RAS and EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics. 2022, Seoul, Korea: IEEE Computer Society.