TY - JOUR
T1 - Clinical Relevance of State-of-the-Art Analysis of Surface Electromyography in Cerebral Palsy
AU - Cappellini, Germana
AU - Sylos-Labini, Francesca
AU - Assenza, Carla
AU - Libernini, Laura
AU - Morelli, Daniela
AU - Lacquaniti, Francesco
AU - Ivanenko, Yury
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health (IRCCS Ricerca corrente), the Italian Space Agency (grants I/006/06/0 and ASI-MARS-PRE DC-VUM 2017-006) the Italian University Ministry (PRIN grant 2017CBF8NJ_005), and the H2020-779963 EUROBENCH FSTP-1 grant (sub-project PEPATO).
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2020 Cappellini, Sylos-Labini, Assenza, Libernini, Morelli, Lacquaniti and Ivanenko.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/12/11
Y1 - 2020/12/11
N2 - Surface electromyography (sEMG) can be used to assess the integrity of the neuromuscular system and its impairment in neurological disorders. Here we will consider several issues related to the current clinical applications, difficulties and limited usage of sEMG for the assessment and rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy. The uniqueness of this methodology is that it can determine hyperactivity or inactivity of selected muscles, which cannot be assessed by other methods. In addition, it can assist for intervention or muscle/tendon surgery acts, and it can evaluate integrated functioning of the nervous system based on multi-muscle sEMG recordings and assess motor pool activation. The latter aspect is especially important for understanding impairments of the mechanisms of neural controllers rather than malfunction of individual muscles. Although sEMG study is an important tool in both clinical research and neurorehabilitation, the results of a survey on the clinical relevance of sEMG in a typical department of pediatric rehabilitation highlighted its limited clinical usage. We believe that this is due to limited knowledge of the sEMG and its neuromuscular underpinnings by many physiotherapists, as a result of lack of emphasis on this important methodology in the courses taught in physical therapy schools. The lack of reference databases or benchmarking software for sEMG analysis may also contribute to the limited clinical usage. Despite the existence of educational and technical barriers to a widespread use of, sEMG does provide important tools for planning and assessment of rehabilitation treatments for children with cerebral palsy.
AB - Surface electromyography (sEMG) can be used to assess the integrity of the neuromuscular system and its impairment in neurological disorders. Here we will consider several issues related to the current clinical applications, difficulties and limited usage of sEMG for the assessment and rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy. The uniqueness of this methodology is that it can determine hyperactivity or inactivity of selected muscles, which cannot be assessed by other methods. In addition, it can assist for intervention or muscle/tendon surgery acts, and it can evaluate integrated functioning of the nervous system based on multi-muscle sEMG recordings and assess motor pool activation. The latter aspect is especially important for understanding impairments of the mechanisms of neural controllers rather than malfunction of individual muscles. Although sEMG study is an important tool in both clinical research and neurorehabilitation, the results of a survey on the clinical relevance of sEMG in a typical department of pediatric rehabilitation highlighted its limited clinical usage. We believe that this is due to limited knowledge of the sEMG and its neuromuscular underpinnings by many physiotherapists, as a result of lack of emphasis on this important methodology in the courses taught in physical therapy schools. The lack of reference databases or benchmarking software for sEMG analysis may also contribute to the limited clinical usage. Despite the existence of educational and technical barriers to a widespread use of, sEMG does provide important tools for planning and assessment of rehabilitation treatments for children with cerebral palsy.
KW - abnormal development
KW - cerebral palsy
KW - clinical application
KW - muscle pathophysiology
KW - rehabilitation
KW - spinal locomotor output
KW - surface electromyography
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U2 - 10.3389/fneur.2020.583296
DO - 10.3389/fneur.2020.583296
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85098198464
VL - 11
JO - Frontiers in Neurology
JF - Frontiers in Neurology
SN - 1664-2295
M1 - 583296
ER -