EMG-Miner: Automatic Acquisition and Processing of Electromyographic Signals: First Experimentation in a Clinical Context for Gait Disorders Evaluation

Abstract

In the context of physical medicine and rehabilitation, gait analysis is the "gold standard" for an effective assessment of any problems in the locomotor patterns. Surface electromyography is one of the exams within the protocol of the gait analysis, allowing an assessment of functional limitations in the walking. Considering the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Unit of the University of Catanzaro, physicians are limited to a visual analysis of the electromyographic signals coming from the muscles of the lower limbs, to extract useful information for diagnosis and monitoring of treatment. The objective of this work is to provide to specialists a simple and flexible system that allows the extraction of quantitative synthetic parameters in time and frequency domain from EMG signals, in particular we propose a novel EMG data acquisition and processing system, referred as EMG-Miner, that allows the automated acquisition and analysis of EMG signals along the different stages of the rehabilitation process (follow-up) of a patient.