Changes in EMG Activities of Upper Arm Muscles and in Shoulder Joint Angles in Post-stroke Patients

Changes in EMG Activities of Upper Arm Muscles and in Shoulder Joint Angles in Post-stroke Patients

Blog Article

The aim of the paper is to compare the electromyographic signals (EMGs) and the joint angles of the affected upper limb muscles of stroke survivors to those of their non-affected limb as well as to those of the dominant and the non-dominant limbs of healthy volunteers.Twenty five volunteers, ten post-stroke survivors and fifteen healthy subjects as control group, participated in the experiments.EMGs of muscles of the upper limbs and two angles in the shoulder joint were registered and processed during three static and two dynamic tasks.The results showed a big variability of all investigated parameters (mean and median frequencies, ranges of motions, maximal normalized EMGs) both for the patients and for the healthy subjects, for right and click here for left hand.

This makes difficult a deduction of definitive conclusions about the changes in motor control of the upper limbs due to stroke.Moreover, natural differences in motor control exist for dominant and non-dominant limb.On the whole, the power-frequency analysis read more and the relevant statistical analysis indicated that the muscles of the affected limb had lower median frequencies than those of the healthy limb.Examination of full elbow flexions in the sagittal plane showed that the range of the motion in the shoulder joint of both limbs of the patients increased when compared to the healthy subjects and that this increase was larger for the affected limb.

The post-stroke survivors used more of their muscle power although no increased co-contraction was observed.