Department of Biomedical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, Hatyai, Songkhla, Thailand.
Engineering Cluster, Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore, Singapore.
PeerJ. 2024 Nov 14;12:e18473. doi: 10.7717/peerj.18473. eCollection 2024.
Abnormal lower limb muscle activity is the most common cause of the alterative pattern of gait in stroke survivors, resulting from spastic and paralytic muscles around the hip, knee, and ankle joints. However, the activity of the major lower limb muscles that control the legs to facilitate walking in stroke patients have not been clearly understood in each subphase of the gait. This study differentiated the characteristics of surface electromyography (sEMG) signals of lower limb muscles during four subphases of gait cycle between stroke patients and healthy subjects. Sixteen chronic stroke patients and sixteen healthy subjects were recruited. All participants completed three walking trials with a self-selected walking speed. The sEMG signals were recorded on the gluteus medius, rectus femoris, long head of biceps femoris, medial gastrocnemius, tibialis anterior, and peroneus longus muscles. The characteristics of sEMG signals were processed and analyzed in the time and frequency features, considering the first double support, single support, second double support, and swing phases of the gait cycle.The stroke patients had altered sEMG characteristics on both paretic and non-paretic sides compared to healthy subjects across the sub-phases of gait cycle for all six muscles. All time domain features of sEMG signal showed that the medial gastrocnemius muscle has the most significant impaired activity ( < 0.05) and affected gait disturbance during all four subphases of the gait cycle. The findings demonstrated that the medial gastrocnemius muscle had impaired activity and was most affected during all four sub-phases of the gait cycle. This indicates that sEMG of medial gastrocnemius muscle can be used to measure the improvement of gait rehabilitation.
异常的下肢肌肉活动是脑卒中幸存者步态改变的最常见原因，这是由于髋关节、膝关节和踝关节周围的痉挛和瘫痪肌肉所致。然而，脑卒中患者在步态的每个亚相中，控制腿部以促进行走的主要下肢肌肉的活动尚未得到明确理解。本研究在步态周期的四个亚相中区分了脑卒中患者和健康受试者下肢肌肉表面肌电图（sEMG）信号的特征。招募了 16 名慢性脑卒中患者和 16 名健康受试者。所有参与者均以自我选择的步行速度完成了三次步行试验。记录了臀中肌、股直肌、股二头肌长头、内侧腓肠肌、胫骨前肌和腓骨长肌的 sEMG 信号。考虑到步态周期的首次双支撑、单支撑、再次双支撑和摆动阶段，对 sEMG 信号的特征进行了处理和分析。与健康受试者相比，脑卒中患者在步态周期的所有六个肌肉的所有亚相中，患侧和非患侧的 sEMG 特征均发生了改变。sEMG 信号的所有时域特征均表明，内侧腓肠肌的活动受损最为显著（<0.05），并且在步态周期的所有四个亚相中均影响了步态障碍。研究结果表明，内侧腓肠肌的活动受损，并且在步态周期的所有四个亚相中均受到最大影响。这表明内侧腓肠肌的 sEMG 可用于测量步态康复的改善。
