Motor unit properties in the biceps brachii of stroke patients assessed with surface array EMG

As a consequence of a stroke, both motor control as well as motor unit (MU) characteristics may change, e.g. MU size has been reported to increase due to reinnervation. The aim of the present study was to investigate how differences between the affected and unaffected side of hemiparetic stroke patients are reflected in surface array electomyography parameters

Reliability of MUAP properties in multi-channel array EMG recordings of trapezius and SCM

Muscle activity can be assessed non-invasively by means of surface electrodes places at the skin overlyin a muscle. When multiy-channel array electrodes are used, it is possible to extract motor unit action potentials (MUAP's) from the EMG signals with a segmentation approach based on the Continuous Wavelet Transform... The objective of the present study was to determine the test-retest reliability of the mentioned parameters during different tasks of the shoulder and neck muscles

The effect of electrode dislocation on lower back surface electromyography amplitude

Surface Electromyography (SEMG) plays an important role in the understanding of trunk muscle activity during various postures and movements. The Root Mean Square (RMS) is used to quantify the muscle activation amplitude and was shown to be a valuable parameter in research focusing on the etiology and maintenance of chronic lower back pain.\ud The aim of the current study was to determine the effect of electrode dislocation on the RMS of the low back muscles

U-Care: Requirements Elicitation For Ambient Assisted Living

Western countries are facing similar trends in healthcare: population is aging, life expectations are growing, the number of healthcare professionals is decreasing, cost pressure on healthcare systems is increasing and urbanization is taking place. ICT can however provide routes to more efficient healthcare solutions: it may provide both quantitative and qualitative improvements by improving access, reducing cost and raising quality.\ud Home care is one important healthcare area. It aids elderly to stay at home as long as possible before moving towards more intensive care environments; it has the potential to alleviate care needs and costs; and it potentially improves the health status of elderly by empowerment and context-dependent monitoring and treatment. This submission presents our requirements elicitation approach for ICT-based home care services, also referred to as Ambient Assisted Living (AAL).\u

Myotel: adressing motor behavior in neck shoulder pain by assessing and feedback semg in the daily (work) environment

Subjects with chronic pain differ in motor behavior especially with a decreased ability to relax their muscles. A myofeedback system has been developed that assesses muscle relaxation in an ambulant way during daily activities. The objective of this study was to examine the RMST on technical efficacy for clinical use and explore changes in clinical outcome

A context-aware adaptive feedback agent for activity monitoring and coaching

A focus in treatment of chronic diseases is optimizing levels of physical activity. At Roessingh Research and Development, a system was developed, consisting of a Smartphone and an activity sensor, that can measure a patient’s daily activity behavior and provide motivational feedback messages. We are currently looking into ways of increasing the effectiveness of motivational messages that aim to stimulate sustainable behavioral change, by adapting its timing and content to individual patients in their current context of use

Daily physical activities of patients with chronic low back pain, assessed with accelerometry

Different theoretical models consider the development and maintenance of chronic low back pain have in common that they all predict changes in the daily activites, although the direction of change may differ between or within these models. The objective of the present study was to investigate these changes, using accelerometers to obtain a quantitative measure of the activity patters over the day

Improved estimation of starting times of human activities using Hidden Markov modeling based activity classification?

Automated classification of human activities should help the researcher, or the physician, with the interpretation of data. In a previous study a novel activity classifier based on Hidden Markov Models was successfully implemented and tested on ambulatory obtained of human activities. The estimated starting times were not accurate. Here the addition of timing information to perform isolated activity training as initialization of the HMM's is proposed to more accurately estimate the starting times of activities

The median frequency of the surface EMG power spectrum in relation to motor unit firing and action potential properties

Three components determine the power spectrum of the surface EMG signal: the auto- and cross-power spectra of the firing processes and the power spectra of the motor unit action potential (MUAP). To clarify the relative contribution of these components to the median frequency (MF) of the power spectrum, a stochastic simulation model was used in which most input parameters [e.g., MUAP peak-peak time (PPT), mean interpulse interval time, and synchronization parameters] were described in terms of distribution functions. Simulation clearly predicts that MF is especially sensitive to variations in MUAP shape, the MUAP PPT, and synchronization. The influence of the firing process parameters was predicted to be marginal. To obtain values for the MUAP parameters, a needle-triggered averaging technique was used to gather surface MUAPs from the m. biceps brachii. With use of these MUAPs as input for the model, it was found that intrasubject variability of MF is caused by variations in both MUAP PPT and MUAP shape, whereas intersubject variability in MF is caused primarily by variations in PPT