1Gowthami Women Engineering College, Proddatur (Kadapa)
2NIMS Hospital & OUCE Biomedical Engg. Dept, Hyderabad, India
3NIMS Hospital, Hyderabad, India
4National University of Singapore & John Hopkins University, America
5SV Govt. Polytechnic, Tirupathi
Online published on 5 February, 2015.
We setup an EMG amplifier for multi channel capturing of EMG signal with special reference to Writer's cramp (WC) from the subject having input impedance greater than 100MegOhm(M□). By using this setup we gathered EMG— EMG data (signals) from WC subjects (diseased conditions) hand muscles: ECR and ECU, FCR and FCU, followed by fifth muscle using a set-of-five innocuous micro-wire-electrodes (50μ) in each-subject. We then assessed coherence and conducted chi-square (χ2) tests on these data in eight subjects of concordant(C) group and 4 subjects of discordant (D) group of right-hand-writing-signal (RHWS) and in left-hand-writing-signal (LHWS)) studied. We compared the difference between flexor-aspect-of-forearm and extensor-aspect-of-intrinsic hand-muscles. This showed significant-coherence in both concordant and discordant groups of WC mirror-movements (MMs) in mirror-Dystonia. These observations suggest that the nature of EMG—EMG coherence in dystonic WC may be constrained by the descendingmotor-systems, both in terms of their anatomical-distribution and their frequency-characteristics. In our computation, the coherence showed symmetry along the diagonals in graphs. We thus state that, this study showed significant quantifiable EMG differences in the signals/waveforms seen while writing with the right and left hands between those WC subjects with concordant MMs (C group) versus those with discordant MMs (D group).
EMG -Electromyography, WC -Writer's Cramp, MM -Mirror Movements, Dystonia, Coherence of EMG, ECR -Extensor Curpi Radialis, ECU -Extensor Curpi Ulnaris, FCR -Flexor Curpi Radialis, FCU -Flexor Curpi Ulnaris, RHWS -Right hand writing signal, LHWS -Left hand writing signal