Title: Electroymyography: What’s What and The Interpretation of Data
Instructors:
Sherry I Backus, PT, DPT, MA
Clinical Lead, Motion Analysis Laboratory, Hospital for Special Surgery, NY NY
Email: backuss@hss.edu
Carole A Tucker, PT, PhD
Professor, Associate Dean for Research, School of Health Professions, University of Texas Medical Branch – Galveston, Galveston, TX
Email: cartucke@utmb.edu
Purpose: This 1-hour session will allow participants to participate in case-based discussions to improve their skills in understanding kinesiologic EMG. This intermediate course is intended for individuals who have some experience with EMGs but would like to improve their understanding and skills in interpreting clinical EMG data. We will discuss EMG data quality issues that impact clinical interpretation. This course consists predominantly of mini-topics coupled with use-case-based discussions of EMGs in adult and pediatric clinical cases.
Intended audience: PTs, engineers, and kinesiologists. This is an intermediate-level course.
At the completion of this course, participants should be able to:
- Discuss EMG data and identify physiologic and hardware related signal and noise
- Develop clinical reasoning guided by EMG data in case-based scenarios
- Interpret EMG within the context of complex clinical applications and cases
Prerequisite knowledge:
- Basic knowledge of the underlying electrophysiology of muscle activity
- Familiarity with surface EMG techniques and reporting
- Basic familiarity with kinematics and kinetics of walking
Outline of course content:
| 5 minutes | Introduction and Session Format | |
| 5-20 minutes | EMG Signals | Data quality issues. EMG Raw vs Linear Envelopes of EMG vs Frequency analysis Case examples & discussion |
| 20-35 | EMG Data forms | Tone, spasticity, amplitude/timing Case examples & discussion |
| 35-50 | Interpretation of Multi-channels in multi-segment movement | “Synergy” analysis Case examples & discussion |
| 50-60 | Discussion, Q & A |