Analysis of reaching movements in stroke patients using average variability of electromyogram value

• Sawada Tatsunori

  Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Health Sciences, Tokyo University of Technology

• Kaneko Fuminari

  Second division of physical therapy, School of health science, Sapporo Medical University

• Aoyama Toshiyuki

  Division of physical therapy, Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Science

• Ogawa Masahiro

  Graduate school of medicine, Kyoto University

• Murakami Tsuneji

  Kure Kyosai Hospital

Abstract

The hypothesis in this study was tested by conducting EMG experiments comparing the variability in muscle activity during repetitive reaching movements in hemiplegic patients and healthy subjects. The present study investigated the characteristics of reaching movements in hemiplegic patients using the variability in average electromyogram (EMG) value. We studied 21 right-handed stroke patients with left-sided hemiparesis and 14 right-handed healthy control subjects. Post-stroke patients (hemiplegic group) and normal subjects (control group) repeated a reaching movement 10 times. The variability in average EMG value of each muscle was defined as the average standard deviation of the average rectified values (nARV-SDave). During the reaching movements, the nARV-SDave values was significantly higher in the hemiparesis group than in the control group for the biceps and triceps brachii (P < 0.05). In the hemiparesis group, significant negative correlations between the variability in nARV-SDave values and the Fugl-Meyer assessment scores were observed in all muscle types (rs = −0.46 to −0.76; P < 0.05, P < 0.01). This study identified a direct relationship between the variability in muscle activity and the severity of motor function deficit in post-stroke patients. The selective impact on the biceps and triceps were related to the nature of the reaching task.

Journal

• Asian Journal of Occupational Therapy

  Asian Journal of Occupational Therapy 13 (1), 13-21, 2017

  Japanese Association of Occupational Therapists

Keywords

• stroke
• upper extremity
• reaching movement
• electromyography
• hemiplagia

Details

• CRID: 1390282680083156224
• NII Article ID: 130005683111
• DOI: 10.11596/asiajot.13.13
• ISSN: 13473484
• ISSN: 13473476
• Web Site: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/asiajot/13/1/13_13/_pdf
• Text Lang: en
• Data Source:
  • JaLC
  • Crossref
  • CiNii Articles
  • KAKEN
• Abstract License Flag: Disallowed