An improved approach for measuring the tonic stretch reflex response of spastic muscles

We propose a new method for detecting the onset of the stretch reflex response for assessment of spasticity based on the Tonic Stretch Reflex Threshold (TSRT). Our strategy relies on a three-stage approach to detect the onset of the reflex EMG activity: (i) Reduction of baseline activity by means of Empirical Mode Decomposition; (ii) Extraction of the complex envelope of the EMG signal by means of Hilbert Transform (HT) and; iii) A double threshold decision rule. Simulated and real EMG data were used to evaluate and compare our method (TSRT-EHD) against three other popular methods described in the literature to assess TSRT ( ‘Kim’, ‘Ferreira’ and ‘Blanchette’).

Source: Computers in Biology and Medicine - December 1, 2016 Category: Bioinformatics Authors: Maristella Borges Silva, Andrei Nakagawa Silva, Eduardo L ázaro Martins Naves, Evanisi Teresa Palomari, Alcimar Barbosa Soares Source Type: research