Evaluation of Spasticity Changes during Manual Hand Therapy Based on sEMG Features

Area of Science:

• Neurorehabilitation
• Biomedical Engineering
• Clinical Neurology

Background:

• Manual therapy is a cornerstone in managing hand spasticity post-stroke.
• Accurate, dynamic assessment of spasticity during therapy remains challenging for clinicians.
• Current methods like the Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS) and surface electromyography (sEMG) have limitations in capturing therapy-induced changes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the dynamic changes in hand spasticity during manual therapy in post-stroke patients.
• To evaluate the correlation between sEMG signals and clinical spasticity measures during therapy.
• To introduce and validate a new quantitative index for assessing spasticity changes.

Main Methods:

• Recruited 11 post-stroke patients with hand spasticity.
• Collected sEMG data from nine upper limb muscles and MAS scores during 70 manual therapy sessions.
• Introduced and analyzed a novel post-offset integrated electromyography (piEMG) index.

Main Results:

• Observed decreasing trends in both MAS scores and four sEMG features during manual therapy.
• Found that integrated electromyography (iEMG) changes closely mirrored MAS score changes.
• Demonstrated a significant correlation between the new piEMG index and MAS scores during static stretching.

Conclusions:

• sEMG data can dynamically inform therapists about changes in hand spasticity during manual therapy.
• The piEMG index offers a quantitative method for assessing spasticity during static stretching.
• Findings provide a basis for developing advanced hand exoskeletons for manual therapy assistance.