Analysis of neck muscle activity and comparison of head movement and body movement during rotational motion

The neck is a very delicate part of the body that is highly prone to whiplash injuries, during jerk. A lot of the research relating to whiplash injuries performed to date has been tested in environments with linear motions and have mostly applied their work to car collisions. Whiplash injuries can also affect disabled individuals during falls, bed transfers, and while travelling in wheelchairs. The primary objective of this paper was to focus on neck and body behaviour during rotational motion, rather than linear motion which has been often associated with car collisions. This paper takes the current motion signal processing technique a step further by computing the differential between head and body motion. Neck electromyogram (EMG) and angular velocity data of the head and body were acquired simultaneously from 20 subjects, as they were rotated 45 degrees in the forward pitch plane, with and without visual input, in a motion simulator. The centre of rotation (COR) on the simulator was located behind the subject Results showed that neck muscle behaviour was affected by the forward rotations, as well as visual input. Anterior neck muscles were most active during forward rotations and trials including VR. Maximum effective muscle power and activity of 10.54% and 55.72 (mV/mV)·s were reached respectively. Furthermore, during forward rotations the motion profiles started off with dominance in body motion, followed by dominance in head motion.