Surface electromyographic evaluation of the neuromuscular activation of the inspiratory muscles during progressively increased inspiratory flow under inspiratory-resistive loading

Analysis and applications of respiratory surface EMG: report of a round table meeting

Surface electromyography (sEMG) can be used to measure the electrical activity of the respiratory muscles. The possible applications of sEMG span from patients suffering from acute respiratory failure to patients receiving chronic home mechanical ventilation, to evaluate muscle function, titrate ventilatory support and guide treatment. However, sEMG is mainly used as a monitoring tool for research and its use in clinical practice is still limited-in part due to a lack of standardization and transparent reporting. During this round table meeting, recommendations on data acquisition, processing, interpretation, and potential clinical applications of respiratory sEMG were discussed. This paper informs the clinical researcher interested in respiratory muscle monitoring about the current state of the art on sEMG, knowledge gaps and potential future applications for patients with respiratory failure.

Pattern of respiratory muscle activity during exercise tests in children born prematurely

INTRODUCTION

Preterm children display only slightly lower exercise capacity than term children do during their development, despite their previous cardiopulmonary impairments. This raises doubts about the role of the respiratory muscles' influence on exercise capacity. This study aimed to compare respiratory muscle activity in preterm and term children using an exercise test.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study involved comparison of 35 term children and 39 matched preterm children aged 6-9 years, who were born prematurely with a birth weight <1500 g. An adapted treadmill incremental test was utilized and surface electromyography of the sternocleidomastoid (SCM), upper trapezius (UT), and rectus abdominis (RA) muscles was performed. The root mean square was calculated every minute and compared between and within groups. A Monte Carlo simulation was also applied, and the area under the curve was calculated to evaluate the differences between groups.

RESULTS

During the entire exercise, the SCM muscle activity was higher in preterm children with a larger area under the curve than in the term children. There was no difference in the RA and UT muscle activity between groups throughout the test.

CONCLUSION

The results suggest a greater contribution of the SCM muscle sin preterm children's performance than in term children's performance during high-intensity exercises.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Brazilian Clinical Trial Registry (ReBec) - RBR-89hr2h.

Difference in electromyographic activity between the trapezius muscle and other neck accessory muscles under an increase in inspiratory resistive loading in the supine position

The activity of the trapezius muscle is reportedly higher than that of other neck accessory muscles under a condition of increased inspiratory pressure in the standing position. The present study aimed to compare the activity of the trapezius muscle with those of the scalene and sternocleidomastoid muscles under a condition of increased inspiratory pressure in the supine position. This study included 40 subjects, and the muscle activity was measured using surface electromyography. Regarding the results, there was a significant difference in the muscle activity between the trapezius muscle and the scalene and sternocleidomastoid muscles (p = 0.003) in both men and women. Post-hoc analysis showed significant differences between trapezius and the other muscles. Moreover, there was no difference between the scalene and sternocleidomastoid muscles (p = 0.596). The increase in the change in electromyography activity of the muscle is greater in the trapezius muscle than in other muscles when the level of inspiratory pressure increases in the supine position.

Effects of Proprioception and Visual Focus of Attention on Surface Electromyography Proportional Control

This paper aimed to study the influence of proprioception and visual focus of attention on predicting elbow angles. The experiments were conducted in two directions with three psychological factors in each direction. Then, the method of pattern recognition was used to predict the elbow angles. Finally, the accuracy of the predicted error was verified by using the root mean square error, and the coherence coefficient of the myocardium was used to analyze the effect of various factors on the recognition accuracy. The results showed that a change in the subject’s external focus of attention and proprioception improved the recognition accuracy of the elbow. The methods and results of the paper can be the basis to optimize surface electromyography (sEMG) control. Finding the relationship between psychological factors and control could enable improvements in the performance of human–computer interactions.