Non-Linear EMG Parameters for Differential and Early Diagnostics of Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

The pre-clinical diagnostics is essential for management of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Although PD has been studied intensively in the last decades, the pre-clinical indicators of that motor disorder have yet to be established. Several approaches were proposed but the definitive method is still lacking. Here we report on the non-linear characteristics of surface electromyogram (sEMG) and tremor acceleration as a possible diagnostic tool, and, in prospective, as a predictor for PD. Following this approach we calculated such non-linear parameters of sEMG and accelerometer signal as correlation dimension, entropy, and determinism. We found that the non-linear parameters allowed discriminating some 85% of healthy controls from PD patients. Thus, this approach offers considerable potential for developing sEMG-based method for pre-clinical diagnostics of PD. However, non-linear parameters proved to be more reliable for the shaking form of PD, while diagnostics of the rigid form of PD using EMG remains an open question.

Increased EMG intermuscular coherence and reduced signal complexity in Parkinson’s disease

“…Intermuscular coherence can be used to quantify the strength of common, or shared, oscillatory drive to pairs of muscles and has been applied to examine changes across a range of conditions including fatigue, stroke and spinal cord injury (Kattla and Lowery, 2010;Nielsen et al, 2008;Barthélemy et al, 2010). A small number of studies have employed %DET, SampEn or intermuscular coherence to analyse structural changes in EMG, however, for the most part the applications of these techniques have received little attention in PD to date (Fattorini et al, 2005;Meigal et al, 2009Meigal et al, , 2013van der Stouwe et al, 2015).…”

“…Alterations in SampEn and %DET in PD have been observed and are largely attributed to increased motor unit synchrony associated with rest tremor (Fattorini et al, 2005;Meigal et al, 2009Meigal et al, , 2013.…”

Assessing Motor Fluctuations in Parkinson’s Disease Patients Based on a Single Inertial Sensor

“…More concretely, these works mainly rely on the use of inertial sensors, although there are other less extended alternatives, as the use of sEMG [25,26,27,28] or another physiological measure [29]. The majority of these research studies have employed wearable sensors to study specific PD symptoms such as FOG [30,31,32], dyskinesia [33,34,35,36] and bradykinesia [18,19,22,37,38,39]; thus, the aim was detecting the presence or severity of a certain symptom.…”

Investigation of the 0.5-4 Hz Low-Frequency Range in the Wave Train Electrical Activity of Muscles in Patients With Parkinson's Disease and Essential Tremor

“…Preclinical diagnosis is very important for the treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET). Although PD and ET have been intensively studied in recent decades, the preclinical indicators of these movement disorders remain to be established MEDICAL PHYSICS [1].…”