Duration of observation required in detecting fasciculation potentials in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis using high-density surface EMG. J Neuroeng Rehabil 2012 Oct 10;9:78
Date
10/11/2012Pubmed ID
23046668Pubmed Central ID
PMC3507914DOI
10.1186/1743-0003-9-78Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84867220207 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 23 CitationsAbstract
BACKGROUND: High-density surface electromyography (HD-SEMG) has recently emerged as a potentially useful tool in the evaluation of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This study addresses a practical constraint that arises when applying HD-SEMG for supporting the diagnosis of ALS; specifically, how long the surface EMG should be recorded before one can be confident that fasciculation potentials (FPs) are absent in a muscle being tested.
METHODS: HD-SEMG recordings of 29 muscles from 11 ALS patients were analyzed. We used the distribution of intervals between FPs, and estimated the observation duration needed to record from one to five FPs with a probability approaching unity. Such an approach was previously tested by Mills with a concentric needle electrode.
RESULTS: We found that the duration of recording was up to 70 s in order to record a single FP with a probability approaching unity. Increasing recording time to 2 minutes, the probability of recording five FPs approached approximately 0.95.
CONCLUSIONS: HD-SEMG appears to be a suitable method for capturing FPs comparable to intramuscular needle EMG.
Author List
Zhou P, Li X, Jahanmiri-Nezhad F, Rymer WZ, Barkhaus PEAuthors
Paul E. Barkhaus MD Professor in the Neurology department at Medical College of WisconsinXiaoyan Li PhD Assistant Professor in the Neurology department at Medical College of Wisconsin
MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AgedAmyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Electrodes
Electromyography
Fasciculation
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Muscle, Skeletal
Needles
