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Ex Vivo Assessment of Contractility, Fatigability and Alternans in Isolated Skeletal Muscles
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Muscle fatigue assessment during robot-mediated movements
Maddalena Mugnosso1,2, Francesca Marini3, Michael Holmes4
1Motor Learning, Assistive and Rehabilitation Robotics Lab, Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences unit, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genoa, Italy. maddalena.mugnosso@iit.it.
Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation
|December 19, 2018
Summary
This study introduces a robot-aided test to objectively measure muscle fatigue, crucial for understanding neuromuscular disorders and developing rehabilitation strategies. The method is fast, reliable, and well-tolerated, offering a practical solution for clinical use.
Area of Science:
- Neuromuscular Physiology
- Rehabilitation Engineering
- Biomedical Signal Processing
Background:
- Muscle fatigue is a key symptom in many neuromuscular disorders, necessitating reliable assessment methods.
- Current clinical practices lack standardized, objective tools for measuring muscle fatigue.
- Accurate fatigue measurement is vital for tracking disease progression and optimizing rehabilitation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate a practical, robot-aided solution for objective muscle fatigue assessment.
- To develop and evaluate a novel indicator for the onset of fatigue (OF).
- To assess the feasibility of this method for clinical application in patients with neuromuscular disorders.
Main Methods:
- Healthy adults performed a repetitive wrist movement task using a robotic manipulandum.
- Surface electromyographic (sEMG) signals were recorded from forearm muscles.
- A new indicator, based on the Mean Frequency of sEMG, was used to determine the onset of fatigue (OF).
Main Results:
- A consistent decrease in Mean Frequency of sEMG was observed in fatigued muscles.
- The novel OF indicator demonstrated reliable timing of fatigue onset across subjects.
- The assessment showed low energy consumption and was well-tolerated behaviorally.
Conclusions:
- The robot-aided test provides a fast, reliable, and objective method for measuring muscle fatigue in healthy individuals.
- This framework is suitable for clinical deployment in patients with neuromuscular disorders.
- The low metabolic demand suggests good tolerability in clinical populations.
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