Analysis of Electrical Impedance Myography Electrodes Configuration for Local Muscle Fatigue Evaluation Based on Finite Element Method

Abstract

Local muscle fatigue (LMF) is a common physiological phenomenon that occurs in daily exercise training and medical rehabilitation. Without timely treatment it can easily lead to muscle spasm, ligament rupture, and even stress fractures. Electrical impedance myography (EIM) is a noninvasive bioelectrical impedance technique suitable for the wearable LMF monitoring anytime and anywhere. In this paper, a novel EIM electrode configuration was proposed by establishing a four-layer simulation model of the human upper arm in FEM software. Sensitivity parameters were introduced to optimize muscle selectivity. The effect of fat thickness on impedance change rate was explored to reduce the influence of individual fat differences on EIM results. Dynamic and static contraction experiments of muscle fatigue were performed on the biceps brachii muscles of 10 volunteers to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed electrode configuration. The proposed electrode configuration reduced the measurement area by 25%, whereas the impedance amplitude and sensitivity remained the same. The influence of individual fat differences on EIM results was significantly reduced. When the fat thickness increased from 6 mm to 18 mm, the impedance change decreased by 31.78% compared with the traditional electrode configuration. When the muscles were extremely exhausted, the decrease in resistance varied around 10 Ω and within 10-1 order of magnitude in different volunteers. In a word, the proposed electrode configuration effectively evaluated the degree of LMF, providing more feasibility for the design of wearable devices. INDEX TERMS Electrical impedance myography, local muscle fatigue, optimized electrode configurations, finite element method, the biceps brachii muscles.

The Rest-Pause Biceps Curl Exercise Effect on Biceps Brachii Muscle of Women: A Study of Mechanical Responsiveness

“…Consequently, 24% and 8% of maximum voluntary isometric and isokinetic contractions were observed in athletes and non-athletes, respectively [33]. Li et al (2020) determined the local muscle fatigue of the BB in dynamic and static contraction using numerical and experimental methods. In this study, firstly, the electromechanical behavior of the threedimensional model of skin, fat, muscle and bone layers for the human upper arm was investigated by finite element analysis.…”

“…Secondly, local muscle fatigue was evaluated on ten volunteers with the novel developed non-invasive electrical impedance myography system. Finally, it was obtained that there is a linear correlation between muscle fatigue and resistance [34]. Asadi Dereshgi et al (2022) investigated the displacement, stress and strain behavior of the BB muscle fiber using the finite element method by applying static forces between 2.5 N and 100 N in 5 N steps [35].…”

A Finite Element Analysis and Circuit Modelling Methodology for Studying Electrical Impedance Myography of Human Limbs

“…Nonetheless, FEA has not been used to study EIM for the assessment of muscle activity until recently. This was brought up in [12], [13], where FEA was used to optimize EIM electrode configurations to monitor muscle fatigue. In [12], frequency and sensitivity studies over the 10kHz-100kHz range were performed on a cylindrical model of the upper arm, for two different electrode configurations.…”

“…This was brought up in [12], [13], where FEA was used to optimize EIM electrode configurations to monitor muscle fatigue. In [12], frequency and sensitivity studies over the 10kHz-100kHz range were performed on a cylindrical model of the upper arm, for two different electrode configurations. In [13], frequency study only at 50kHz was performed on an elliptical cylinder model of the upper arm.…”

“…The proposed methodology studies EIM in terms of its biophysical mechanism through FEA over a wide frequency range, and complements the previous methodologies with circuit-based modelling. More specifically, combining the approaches from [9]- [12], FEA is used to evaluate bioimpedance spectrum (computed from the resulting Z-parameters), sensitivity distribution, and volume impedance density, for parametric changes of subcutaneous fat and muscle thickness on limb models, over the 1 Hz -1 MHz frequency range. Bioimpedance spectra shows the impact of alterations in subcutaneous fat thickness, muscle size, and IEDs on the EIM measurement.…”