Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Perth’s ‘Scooter Gran’ helping medical experts

Perth. 'Scooter-Gran'. Barbel Roerig, is giving medical experts an insight into how we all move.
Perth. 'Scooter-Gran'. Barbel Roerig, is giving medical experts an insight into how we all move.

Her fast-paced exploits through the Fair City streets made her famous across the world.

But Perth’s “Scooter Gran” could now change perceptions of how we move.

The Courier told last year how grandmother, Barbel Roerig, took to her fold-up children’s scooter to ease painful joints when she walked.

Her story attracted a worldwide Facebook following and sparked a probe by a team of experts at Glasgow Caledonian University. They have been amazed by the results.

Martin Steultjens, a professor of musculoskeletal health, said: “We noticed that she had stated that she had used the scooter because it reduced the pain in her knees and we were intrigued because that is mainly our area of research.

“And one of the ways that knees get painful is because they are overloaded because the load of the knee is too high.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=aSKFcz3ysy0%3Frel%3D0

“We were interested to see if scootering could reduce the load on the knee and conducted a series of experiments to see if that was the case.”

One of the team studied Mrs Roerig’s movements and then copied them in laboratory conditions using a scooter borrowed from the child of a member of staff. Computer simulated results were then collated.

Prof Steultjens said; “What normally happens if you walk, as soon as your foot hits the floor, you get quite a big jolt through the knee and at the moment you are bearing about one and a half times your body weight.

“But what we saw with the scootering is that that big jolt almost completely disappears. We found that the load on the leg being used to propel the scooter the stepping leg so to speak was reduced by as much as 67%.

“We were not surprised that it reduced the load to some extent but we were really surprised just how much it did so.”

Mrs Roerig (74), a former architectural technician, moved to Perth in 1971 and has been a familiar figure in recent years because of her eccentric method of travel.

The Facebook page set up in her honour has attracted thousands of fans from as far afield as Columbia, Pakistan and New Zealand.

Charity T-shirts were sold in her honour and there were even rumours of an invitation to appear on Britain’s Got Talent.

She said: “I have sore knees and I have an allotment which means carrying a lot of stuff. I needed something to help with the load.”