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Jin Y, Alvarez JT, Suitor EL, Swaminathan K, Chin A, Civici US, Nuckols RW, Howe RD, Walsh CJ. Estimation of joint torque in dynamic activities using wearable A-mode ultrasound. Nat Commun 2024; 15:5756. [PMID: 38982087 PMCID: PMC11233567 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-50038-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2024] [Accepted: 06/24/2024] [Indexed: 07/11/2024] Open
Abstract
The human body constantly experiences mechanical loading. However, quantifying internal loads within the musculoskeletal system remains challenging, especially during unconstrained dynamic activities. Conventional measures are constrained to laboratory settings, and existing wearable approaches lack muscle specificity or validation during dynamic movement. Here, we present a strategy for estimating corresponding joint torque from muscles with different architectures during various dynamic activities using wearable A-mode ultrasound. We first introduce a method to track changes in muscle thickness using single-element ultrasonic transducers. We then estimate elbow and knee torque with errors less than 7.6% and coefficients of determination (R2) greater than 0.92 during controlled isokinetic contractions. Finally, we demonstrate wearable joint torque estimation during dynamic real-world tasks, including weightlifting, cycling, and both treadmill and outdoor locomotion. The capability to assess joint torque during unconstrained real-world activities can provide new insights into muscle function and movement biomechanics, with potential applications in injury prevention and rehabilitation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yichu Jin
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Jonathan T Alvarez
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Elizabeth L Suitor
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Krithika Swaminathan
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Andrew Chin
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Umut S Civici
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Richard W Nuckols
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA, USA
| | - Robert D Howe
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Conor J Walsh
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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de Oliveira J, de Souza MA, Assef AA, Maia JM. Multi-Sensing Techniques with Ultrasound for Musculoskeletal Assessment: A Review. SENSORS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2022; 22:9232. [PMID: 36501933 PMCID: PMC9740760 DOI: 10.3390/s22239232] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2022] [Revised: 10/22/2022] [Accepted: 10/27/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
The study of muscle contractions generated by the muscle-tendon unit (MTU) plays a critical role in medical diagnoses, monitoring, rehabilitation, and functional assessments, including the potential for movement prediction modeling used for prosthetic control. Over the last decade, the use of combined traditional techniques to quantify information about the muscle condition that is correlated to neuromuscular electrical activation and the generation of muscle force and vibration has grown. The purpose of this review is to guide the reader to relevant works in different applications of ultrasound imaging in combination with other techniques for the characterization of biological signals. Several research groups have been using multi-sensing systems to carry out specific studies in the health area. We can divide these studies into two categories: human-machine interface (HMI), in which sensors are used to capture critical information to control computerized prostheses and/or robotic actuators, and physiological study, where sensors are used to investigate a hypothesis and/or a clinical diagnosis. In addition, the relevance, challenges, and expectations for future work are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonathan de Oliveira
- Graduate Program in Health Technology (PPGTS), Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná, Curitiba 80215-901, Brazil
| | - Mauren Abreu de Souza
- Graduate Program in Health Technology (PPGTS), Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná, Curitiba 80215-901, Brazil
| | - Amauri Amorin Assef
- Graduate Program in Electrical and Computer Engineering (CPGEI), Federal University of Technology of Paraná (UTFPR), Curitiba 80230-901, Brazil
| | - Joaquim Miguel Maia
- Graduate Program in Electrical and Computer Engineering (CPGEI), Federal University of Technology of Paraná (UTFPR), Curitiba 80230-901, Brazil
- Electronics Engineering Department (DAELN), Federal University of Technology of Paraná (UTFPR), Curitiba 80230-901, Brazil
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3
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Alvarez JT, Gerez LF, Araromi OA, Hunter JG, Choe DK, Payne CJ, Wood RJ, Walsh CJ. Toward Soft Wearable Strain Sensors for Muscle Activity Monitoring. IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng 2022; 30:2198-2206. [PMID: 35925858 PMCID: PMC9421605 DOI: 10.1109/tnsre.2022.3196501] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
The force-generating capacity of skeletal muscle is an important metric in the evaluation and diagnosis of musculoskeletal health. Measuring changes in muscle force exertion is essential for tracking the progress of athletes during training, for evaluating patients’ recovery after muscle injury, and also for assisting the diagnosis of conditions such as muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, or Parkinson’s disease. Traditional hardware for strength evaluation requires technical training for operation, generates discrete time points for muscle assessment, and is implemented in controlled settings. The ability to continuously monitor muscle force without restricting the range of motion or adapting the exercise protocol to suit specific hardware would allow for a richer dataset that can help unlock critical features of muscle health and strength evaluation. In this paper, we employ wearable, ultra-sensitive soft strain sensors for tracking changes in muscle deformation during contractions. We demonstrate the sensors’ sensitivity to isometric contractions, as well as the sensors’ capacity to track changes in peak torque over the course of an isokinetic fatiguing protocol for the knee extensors. The wearable soft system was able to efficiently estimate peak joint torque reduction caused by muscle fatigue (mean NRMSE = 0.15±0.03).
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Naruse M, Trappe SW, Trappe TA. Human skeletal muscle size with ultrasound imaging: a comprehensive review. J Appl Physiol (1985) 2022; 132:1267-1279. [PMID: 35358402 PMCID: PMC9126220 DOI: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00041.2022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Skeletal muscle size is an important factor in assessing adaptation to exercise training and detraining, athletic performance, age-associated atrophy and mobility decline, clinical conditions associated with cachexia, and overall skeletal muscle health. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and computed tomography (CT) are widely accepted as the gold standard methods for skeletal muscle size quantification. However, it is not always feasible to use these methods (e.g., field studies, bedside studies, large cohort studies). Ultrasound has been available for skeletal muscle examination for more than 50 years and the development, utility, and validity of ultrasound imaging are underappreciated. It is now possible to use ultrasound in situations where MR and CT imaging are not suitable. This review provides a comprehensive summary of ultrasound imaging and human skeletal muscle size assessment. Since the first study in 1968, more than 600 articles have used ultrasound to examine the cross-sectional area and/or volume of 107 different skeletal muscles in more than 27,500 subjects of various ages, health status, and fitness conditions. Data from these studies, supported by decades of technological developments, collectively show that ultrasonography is a valid tool for skeletal muscle size quantification. Considering the wide-ranging connections between human health and function and skeletal muscle mass, the utility of ultrasound imaging will allow it to be employed in research investigations and clinical practice in ways not previously appreciated or considered.
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Affiliation(s)
- Masatoshi Naruse
- Human Performance Laboratory, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, United States
| | - Scott W Trappe
- Human Performance Laboratory, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, United States
| | - Todd A Trappe
- Human Performance Laboratory, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, United States
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5
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Personalized fusion of ultrasound and electromyography-derived neuromuscular features increases prediction accuracy of ankle moment during plantarflexion. Biomed Signal Process Control 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bspc.2021.103100] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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Naeem J, Hamzaid NA, Azman AW, Bijak M. Electrical stimulator with mechanomyography-based real-time monitoring, muscle fatigue detection, and safety shut-off: a pilot study. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2021; 65:461-468. [PMID: 32304295 DOI: 10.1515/bmt-2019-0191] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2019] [Accepted: 01/07/2020] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Functional electrical stimulation (FES) has been used to produce force-related activities on the paralyzed muscle among spinal cord injury (SCI) individuals. Early muscle fatigue is an issue in all FES applications. If not properly monitored, overstimulation can occur, which can lead to muscle damage. A real-time mechanomyography (MMG)-based FES system was implemented on the quadriceps muscles of three individuals with SCI to generate an isometric force on both legs. Three threshold drop levels of MMG-root mean square (MMG-RMS) feature (thr50, thr60, and thr70; representing 50%, 60%, and 70% drop from initial MMG-RMS values, respectively) were used to terminate the stimulation session. The mean stimulation time increased when the MMG-RMS drop threshold increased (thr50: 22.7 s, thr60: 25.7 s, and thr70: 27.3 s), indicating longer sessions when lower performance drop was allowed. Moreover, at thr70, the torque dropped below 50% from the initial value in 14 trials, more than at thr50 and thr60. This is a clear indication of muscle fatigue detection using the MMG-RMS value. The stimulation time at thr70 was significantly longer (p = 0.013) than that at thr50. The results demonstrated that a real-time MMG-based FES monitoring system has the potential to prevent the onset of critical muscle fatigue in individuals with SCI in prolonged FES sessions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jannatul Naeem
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia
| | - Nur Azah Hamzaid
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia
| | - Amelia Wong Azman
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 53100, Malaysia
| | - Manfred Bijak
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia
- Medical University Vienna, Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Vienna, Austria
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Miller J, Gollee H, Purcell M. Ultrasound Imaging as a Diagnostic Tool to Assess the Functional Status of Muscles after a Spinal Cord Injury. ULTRASOUND IN MEDICINE & BIOLOGY 2021; 47:386-397. [PMID: 33309040 DOI: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2020.10.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/23/2020] [Revised: 10/14/2020] [Accepted: 10/17/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of ultrasound imaging (USI) as a diagnostic tool to assess muscle function after a spinal cord injury (SCI). Ultrasound videos of the gastrocnemius medialis muscle were recorded both at rest and during attempted maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) for fifteen participants with a SCI and fifteen able-bodied controls. Measurements were repeated at monthly intervals for participants in the SCI group during their inpatient stay. Differences in muscle echogenicity and thickness were detected between both able-bodied and SCI groups and subgroups of SCI participants, suggesting USI can detect and monitor changes in muscle structure which are characteristic of atrophy. Decreased muscle movement in the SCI groups was also detected during attempted MVC. The ability of USI to distinguish between different levels of function demonstrates the potential of USI as a quantitative tool to assess muscles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer Miller
- Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering, James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom; Queen Elizabeth National Spinal Injuries Unit, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
| | - Henrik Gollee
- Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering, James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom; Queen Elizabeth National Spinal Injuries Unit, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow, United Kingdom
| | - Mariel Purcell
- Queen Elizabeth National Spinal Injuries Unit, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow, United Kingdom
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8
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Jialin SMS, Xiang LMD, Jianquan ZMD, Jiaqi ZMD, Lulu ZMS. Quantitative Evaluation of Cirrhosis by Geometrical Characteristics of Hepatic Capsule Based on High-frequency Ultrasound Imaging: an Experimental Study. ADVANCED ULTRASOUND IN DIAGNOSIS AND THERAPY 2021. [DOI: 10.37015/audt.2021.200073] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
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9
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Zheng Y, Shin H, Kamper DG, Hu X. Automatic Detection of Contracting Muscle Regions via the Deformation Field of Transverse Ultrasound Images: A Feasibility Study. Ann Biomed Eng 2020; 49:354-366. [PMID: 32632530 DOI: 10.1007/s10439-020-02557-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2020] [Accepted: 06/25/2020] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Accurate identification of contracting muscles can help us to understand the muscle function in both physiological and pathological conditions. Conventional electromyography (EMG) have limited access to deep muscles, crosstalk, or instability in the recordings. Accordingly, a novel framework was developed to detect contracting muscle regions based on the deformation field of transverse ultrasound images. We first estimated the muscle movements in a stepwise calculation, to derive the deformation field. We then calculated the divergence of the deformation field to locate the expanding or shrinking regions during muscle contractions. Two preliminary experiments were performed to evaluate the feasibility of the developed algorithm. Using concurrent intramuscular EMG recordings, Experiment I verified that the divergence map can capture the activity of superficial and deep muscles, when muscles were activated voluntarily or through electrical stimulation. Experiment II verified that the divergence map can only capture contracting muscles but not muscle shortening during passive movements. The results demonstrated that the divergence can individually capture the activity of muscles at different depths, and was not sensitive to muscle shortening during passive movements. The proposed framework can automatically detect the regions of contracting muscle, and could potentially serve as a tool to assess the functions of a group of muscles concurrently.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Zheng
- Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, 116 Manning Drive, 10206B Mary Ellen Jones Bldg, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-7575, USA
| | - Henry Shin
- Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, 116 Manning Drive, 10206B Mary Ellen Jones Bldg, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-7575, USA
| | - Derek G Kamper
- Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, 116 Manning Drive, 10206B Mary Ellen Jones Bldg, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-7575, USA
| | - Xiaogang Hu
- Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, 116 Manning Drive, 10206B Mary Ellen Jones Bldg, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-7575, USA.
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10
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AlMohimeed I, Ono Y. Ultrasound Measurement of Skeletal Muscle Contractile Parameters Using Flexible and Wearable Single-Element Ultrasonic Sensor. SENSORS 2020; 20:s20133616. [PMID: 32605006 PMCID: PMC7374409 DOI: 10.3390/s20133616] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2020] [Revised: 06/17/2020] [Accepted: 06/23/2020] [Indexed: 12/25/2022]
Abstract
Skeletal muscle is considered as a near-constant volume system, and the contractions of the muscle are related to the changes in tissue thickness. Assessment of the skeletal muscle contractile parameters such as maximum contraction thickness (Th), contraction time (Tc), contraction velocity (Vc), sustain time (Ts), and half-relaxation (Tr) provides valuable information for various medical applications. This paper presents a single-element wearable ultrasonic sensor (WUS) and a method to measure the skeletal muscle contractile parameters in A-mode ultrasonic data acquisition. The developed WUS was made of double-layer polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) piezoelectric polymer films with a simple and low-cost fabrication process. A flexible, lightweight, thin, and small size WUS would provide a secure attachment to the skin surface without affecting the muscle contraction dynamics of interest. The developed WUS was employed to monitor the contractions of gastrocnemius (GC) muscle of a human subject. The GC muscle contractions were evoked by the electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) at varying EMS frequencies from 2 Hz up to 30 Hz. The tissue thickness changes due to the muscle contractions were measured by utilizing a time-of-flight method in the ultrasonic through-transmission mode. The developed WUS demonstrated the capability to monitor the tissue thickness changes during the unfused and fused tetanic contractions. The tetanic progression level was quantitatively assessed using the parameter of the fusion index (FI) obtained. In addition, the contractile parameters (Th, Tc, Vc, Ts, and Tr) were successfully extracted from the measured tissue thickness changes. In addition, the unfused and fused tetanus frequencies were estimated from the obtained FI-EMS frequency curve. The WUS and ultrasonic method proposed in this study could be a valuable tool for inexpensive, non-invasive, and continuous monitoring of the skeletal muscle contractile properties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ibrahim AlMohimeed
- Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada;
- Department of Medical Equipment Technology, Majmaah University, Majmaah 11952, Saudi Arabia
| | - Yuu Ono
- Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada;
- Correspondence:
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Xu J, Xu D, Wei Q, Zhou Y. Automatic classification of male and female skeletal muscles using ultrasound imaging. Biomed Signal Process Control 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bspc.2019.101731] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
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12
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Chen X, Xie C, Chen Z, Li Q. Automatic Tracking of Muscle Cross-Sectional Area Using Convolutional Neural Networks with Ultrasound. JOURNAL OF ULTRASOUND IN MEDICINE : OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ULTRASOUND IN MEDICINE 2019; 38:2901-2908. [PMID: 30937932 DOI: 10.1002/jum.14995] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2018] [Revised: 02/14/2019] [Accepted: 02/24/2019] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to develop an automatic tracking method for the muscle cross-sectional area (CSA) on ultrasound (US) images using a convolutional neural network (CNN). The performance of the proposed method was evaluated and compared with that of the state-of-the art muscle segmentation method. METHODS A real-time US image sequence was obtained from the rectus femoris muscle during voluntary contraction. A CNN was built to segment the rectus femoris muscle and calculate the CSA in each US frame. This network consisted of 2 stages: feature extraction and score map reconstruction. The training of the network was divided into 3 steps with output score map resolutions of one-fourth, one-half, and all of the original image. We evaluated the segmentation performance of our method with 5-fold cross-validation. The mean precision, recall, and dice similarity score were calculated. RESULTS The mean precision, recall, and Dice's coefficient (DSC) ± SD were 0.936 ± 0.029, 0.882 ± 0.045, and 0.907 ± 0.023, respectively. Compared with the state-of-the-art muscle segmentation method (constrained mutual-information-based free-form deformation), the proposed method using CNN showed high performance. CONCLUSIONS The automated method proposed in this study provides an accurate and efficient approach to the estimation of the muscle CSA during muscle contraction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xin Chen
- School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University, National-Regional Key Technology Engineering Laboratory for Medical Ultrasound, Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, Shenzhen, China
| | - Chenxi Xie
- School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University, National-Regional Key Technology Engineering Laboratory for Medical Ultrasound, Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, Shenzhen, China
| | - Zhewei Chen
- School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University, National-Regional Key Technology Engineering Laboratory for Medical Ultrasound, Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, Shenzhen, China
| | - Qiaoliang Li
- School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University, National-Regional Key Technology Engineering Laboratory for Medical Ultrasound, Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, Shenzhen, China
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Liu Z, Chan SC, Zhang S, Zhang Z, Chen X. Automatic Muscle Fiber Orientation Tracking in Ultrasound Images Using a New Adaptive Fading Bayesian Kalman Smoother. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON IMAGE PROCESSING : A PUBLICATION OF THE IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING SOCIETY 2019; 28:3714-3727. [PMID: 30794172 DOI: 10.1109/tip.2019.2899941] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
This paper proposes a new algorithm for automatic estimation of muscle fiber orientation (MFO) in musculoskeletal ultrasound images, which is commonly used for both diagnosis and rehabilitation assessment of patients. The algorithm is based on a novel adaptive fading Bayesian Kalman filter (AF-BKF) and an automatic region of interest (ROI) extraction method. The ROI is first enhanced by the Gabor filter (GF) and extracted automatically using the revoting constrained Radon transform (RCRT) approach. The dominant MFO in the ROI is then detected by the RT and tracked by the proposed AF-BKF, which employs simplified Gaussian mixtures to approximate the non-Gaussian state densities and a new adaptive fading method to update the mixture parameters. An AF-BK smoother (AF-BKS) is also proposed by extending the AF-BKF using the concept of Rauch-Tung-Striebel smoother for further smoothing the fascicle orientations. The experimental results and comparisons show that: 1) the maximum segmentation error of the proposed RCRT is below nine pixels, which is sufficiently small for MFO tracking; 2) the accuracy of MFO gauged by RT in the ROI enhanced by the GF is comparable to that of using multiscale vessel enhancement filter-based method and better than those of local RT and revoting Hough transform approaches; and 3) the proposed AF-BKS algorithm outperforms the other tested approaches and achieves a performance close to those obtained by experienced operators (the overall covariance obtained by the AF-BKS is 3.19, which is rather close to that of the operators, 2.86). It, thus, serves as a valuable tool for automatic estimation of fascicle orientations and possibly for other applications in musculoskeletal ultrasound images.
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Takahashi Y, Saito A, Sato H, Shibata K, Okura K, Kinoshita K, Seto A, Osawa S, Wakasa M, Kimoto M, Okada K. In Vivo Flattening of the Central Aponeurosis of the Rectus Femoris Due to Knee Extension Torque in Healthy Young and Elderly Individuals With Knee Osteoarthritis. Ultrasound Q 2019; 37:77-83. [PMID: 30958806 DOI: 10.1097/ruq.0000000000000443] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
ABSTRACT We aimed to elucidate the relationship between active force production and the curvature of the central aponeurosis (CA) of the rectus femoris in young healthy participants as fundamental data and compare the muscle CA curvature before and after straight leg raising (SLR) training in participants with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Central aponeurosis curvature was determined during submaximal and maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) using ultrasonography. Twenty-five young healthy female volunteers underwent ultrasonographic measurements under conditions of isometric MVC. They were divided into a flat shaped CA group (flat) and an incompletely flat shaped CA group (remnant). Central aponeurosis curvature was calculated as the ratio of CA height and length in the axial view. Central aponeurosis shape and muscular strength before and after muscle training were measured in 11 participants with knee OA. In the young healthy individuals, maximal voluntary torque and changes in CA curvature were significantly higher in the flat group than in the remnant group (2.15 Nm/kg and - 17.7% vs 1.75 Nm/kg and -9.8%, respectively; P = 0.005). The rate of change of the CA curvature during contraction was significantly correlated with maximal voluntary torque corrected for body mass (r = 0.512). The CA curvature progressively decreased as %MVC increased. In the OA group, CA curvature during MVC after SLR training was significantly lower than that before SLR training (3.2% vs 7.2%; P = 0.031). Central aponeurosis curvature was associated with muscle strength, and the results supported our hypothesis that geometric observation of CA changes during contractions may reflect muscle fiber function. We aim to develop a new ultrasonographic skeletal muscle evaluation method based on our present findings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yusuke Takahashi
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Akita University Hospital, Akita, Japan
| | - Akira Saito
- Department of Physical Therapy, Akita University Graduate School of Health Sciences
| | - Hiromichi Sato
- Department of Rehabilitation, Omagari Kousei Medical Center
| | | | | | | | - Arata Seto
- Department of Rehabilitation, Sanno Orthopedic Clinic
| | - Shinjiro Osawa
- Department of Rehabilitation, Fujiwara Memorial Hospital, Akita, Japan
| | - Masahiko Wakasa
- Department of Physical Therapy, Akita University Graduate School of Health Sciences
| | - Minoru Kimoto
- Department of Physical Therapy, Akita University Graduate School of Health Sciences
| | - Kyoji Okada
- Department of Physical Therapy, Akita University Graduate School of Health Sciences
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15
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Ratnovsky A, Kusayev E, Naftali S. Analysis of skeletal muscle performance using piezoelectric film sensors. Technol Health Care 2018; 26:371-378. [DOI: 10.3233/thc-171143] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
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16
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Kian-Bostanabad S, Azghani MR, Rahnama L. The relationship between shoulder joint response with cervical multifidus muscle dimensions. Biomed Signal Process Control 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bspc.2017.07.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
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17
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Cho JE, Cho KH, Yoo JS, Lee SJ, Lee WH. Reliability and validity of a dual-probe personal computer-based muscle viewer for measuring the pennation angle of the medial gastrocnemius muscle in patients who have had a stroke. Top Stroke Rehabil 2017; 25:6-12. [DOI: 10.1080/10749357.2017.1383723] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Ji-Eun Cho
- Department of Physical Therapy, Graduate School, Sahmyook University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Ki Hun Cho
- Department of Physical Therapy, Uiduk University, Gyeongbuk, Republic of Korea
| | - Jun sang Yoo
- Department of Physical Therapy, Graduate School, Sahmyook University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Su Jin Lee
- Department of Physical Therapy, Graduate School, Sahmyook University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Wan-Hee Lee
- College of Health Science, Department of Physical Therapy, Sahmyook University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
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18
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Santos R, Armada-da-Silva P. Reproducibility of ultrasound-derived muscle thickness and echo-intensity for the entire quadriceps femoris muscle. Radiography (Lond) 2017; 23:e51-e61. [DOI: 10.1016/j.radi.2017.03.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2016] [Revised: 03/15/2017] [Accepted: 03/20/2017] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
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The relationship between RMS electromyography and thickness change in the skeletal muscles. Med Eng Phys 2017; 43:92-96. [DOI: 10.1016/j.medengphy.2017.01.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2016] [Revised: 11/13/2016] [Accepted: 01/15/2017] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
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Ultrasonic Measurement of Dynamic Muscle Behavior for Poststroke Hemiparetic Gait. BIOMED RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL 2017; 2017:8208764. [PMID: 28232945 PMCID: PMC5292389 DOI: 10.1155/2017/8208764] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/05/2016] [Revised: 11/10/2016] [Accepted: 12/21/2016] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Quantitative evaluation of the hemiparesis status for a poststroke patient is still challenging. This study aims to measure and investigate the dynamic muscle behavior in poststroke hemiparetic gait using ultrasonography. Twelve hemiparetic patients walked on a treadmill, and EMG, joint angle, and ultrasonography were simultaneously recorded for the gastrocnemius medialis muscle. Pennation angle was automatically extracted from ultrasonography using a tracking algorithm reported previously. The characteristics of EMG, joint angle, and pennation angle in gait cycle were calculated for both (affected and unaffected) sides of lower limbs. The results suggest that pennation angle could work as an important morphological index to continuous muscle contraction. The change pattern of pennation angle between the affected and unaffected sides is different from that of EMG. These findings indicate that morphological parameter extracted from ultrasonography can provide different information from that provided by EMG for hemiparetic gait.
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Wei X, Zhang J, Chan SC, Wu HC, Zhou Y, Zheng YP. Automatic Extraction of Central Tendon of Rectus Femoris (CT-RF) in Ultrasound Images Using a New Intensity-Compensated Free-Form Deformation-Based Tracking Algorithm With Local Shape Refinement. IEEE J Biomed Health Inform 2016; 21:1058-1068. [PMID: 27323384 DOI: 10.1109/jbhi.2016.2580708] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Ultrasonography is an important diagnostic imaging technique for visualization of tendons, which provides useful health diagnostic and fundamental information in neuromuscular studies of human motion systems. Conventional ultrasonic-based tendon studies, however, are highly dependent on subjective experience of operators due to various impairments of ultrasound images. Dynamic changes of muscle and tendon deformation in a sequence can hardly be manually processed. Consequently, there is an urgent need for automatic analysis of tendon behavior. This paper proposes an automatic ultrasonic tendon tracking algorithm to extract the shape deformation of central tendon of rectus femoris (CT-RF) from ultrasonic image sequences. The tracking problem is complicated by the highly deformable tendon, time-varying brightness, and the inconspicuousness of the target. To address this difficult tracking problem, we proposed a new intensity-compensated free-form deformation (IC-FFD)-based tracking algorithm with local shape refinement (LSR). Experimental results and comparison show that the proposed IC-FFD-LSR algorithm outperforms IC-FFD and conventional methods such as MI-FFD in CT-RF tracking.
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Chen X, Wen H, Li Q, Wang T, Chen S, Zheng YP, Zhang Z. Identifying transient patterns of in vivo muscle behaviors during isometric contraction by local polynomial regression. Biomed Signal Process Control 2016. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bspc.2015.09.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
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Li J, Zhou Y, Zheng YP, Li G. An attempt to bridge muscle architecture dynamics and its instantaneous rate of force development using ultrasonography. ULTRASONICS 2015; 61:71-78. [PMID: 25911147 DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2015.03.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2014] [Revised: 03/23/2015] [Accepted: 03/28/2015] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
Muscle force output is an essential index in rehabilitation assessment or physical exams, and could provide considerable insights for various applications such as load monitoring and muscle assessment in sports science or rehabilitation therapy. Besides direct measurement of force output using a dynamometer, electromyography has earlier been used in several studies to quantify muscle force as an indirect means. However, its spatial resolution is easily compromised as a summation of the action potentials from neighboring motor units of electrode site. To explore an alternative method to indirectly estimate the muscle force output, and with better muscle specificity, we started with an investigation on the relationship between architecture dynamics and force output of triceps surae. The muscular architecture dynamics is captured in ultrasonography sequences and estimated using a previously reported motion estimation method. Then an indicator named as the dorsoventrally averaged motion profile (DAMP) is employed. The performance of force output is represented by an instantaneous version of the rate of force development (RFD), namely I-RFD. From experimental results on ten normal subjects, there were significant correlations between the I-RFD and DAMP for triceps surae, both normalized between 0 and 1, with the sum of squares error at 0.0516±0.0224, R-square at 0.7929±0.0931 and root mean squared error at 0.0159±0.0033. The statistical significance results were less than 0.01. The present study suggested that muscle architecture dynamics extracted from ultrasonography during contraction is well correlated to the I-RFD and it can be a promising option for indirect estimation of muscle force output.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jizhou Li
- School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, China; Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
| | - Yongjin Zhou
- School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, China; National-Regional Key Technology Engineering Laboratory for Medical Ultrasound, China; Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, China.
| | - Yong-Ping Zheng
- Interdisciplinary Division of Biomedical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
| | - Guanglin Li
- Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
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Chen X, Li Q, Qi S, Zhang H, Chen S, Wang T. Continuous fascicle orientation measurement of medial gastrocnemius muscle in ultrasonography using frequency domain Radon transform. Biomed Signal Process Control 2015. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bspc.2015.04.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
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25
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Novel insights into skeletal muscle function by mechanomyography: from the laboratory to the field. SPORT SCIENCES FOR HEALTH 2015. [DOI: 10.1007/s11332-015-0219-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
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A novel outlier detection method for identifying torque-related transient patterns of in vivo muscle behavior. ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY SOCIETY. IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY SOCIETY. ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2015; 2014:4216-9. [PMID: 25570922 DOI: 10.1109/embc.2014.6944554] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
This paper proposed a novel outlier detection method, named l1-regularized outlier isolation and regression (LOIRE), to examine torque-related transient patterns of in vivo muscle behavior from multimodal signals, including electromyography (EMG), mechanomyography (MMG) and ultrasonography (US), during isometric muscle contraction. Eight subjects performed isometric ramp contraction of knee up to 90% of the maximal voluntary contraction, and EMG, MMG and US were simultaneously recorded from the rectus femoris muscle. Five features, including two root mean square amplitudes from EMG and MMG, muscle cross sectional area, muscle thickness and width from US were extracted. Then, local polynomial regression was used to obtain the signal-to-torque relationships and their derivatives. By assuming the signal-to-torque functions are basically quadratic, the LOIRE method is applied to identify transient torque-related patterns of EMG, MMG and US features as outliers of the linear derivative-to-torque functions. The results show that the LOIRE method can effectively reveal transient patterns in the signal-to-torque relationships (for example, sudden changes around 20% MVC can be observed from all features), providing important information about in vivo muscle behavior.
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Jizhou Li, Yongjin Zhou, Yi Lu, Guangquan Zhou, Lei Wang, Yong-Ping Zheng. The Sensitive and Efficient Detection of Quadriceps Muscle Thickness Changes in Cross-Sectional Plane Using Ultrasonography: A Feasibility Investigation. IEEE J Biomed Health Inform 2014; 18:628-35. [DOI: 10.1109/jbhi.2013.2275002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
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Li J, Zhou Y, Ivanov K, Zheng YP. Estimation and visualization of longitudinal muscle motion using ultrasonography: a feasibility study. ULTRASONICS 2014; 54:779-788. [PMID: 24206676 DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2013.09.024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2013] [Revised: 08/31/2013] [Accepted: 09/27/2013] [Indexed: 06/02/2023]
Abstract
Ultrasonography is a convenient and widely used technique to look into the longitudinal muscle motion as it is radiation-free and real-time. The motion of localized parts of the muscle, disclosed by ultrasonography, spatially reflects contraction activities of the corresponding muscles. However, little attention was paid to the estimation of longitudinal muscle motion, especially towards estimation of dense deformation field at different depths under the skin. Yet fewer studies on the visualization of such muscle motion or further clinical applications were reported in the literature. A primal-dual algorithm was used to estimate the motion of gastrocnemius muscle (GM) in longitudinal direction in this study. To provide insights into the rules of longitudinal muscle motion, we proposed a novel framework including motion estimation, visualization and quantitative analysis to interpret synchronous activities of collaborating muscles with spatial details. The proposed methods were evaluated on ultrasound image sequences, captured at a rate of 25 frames per second from eight healthy subjects. In order to estimate and visualize the GM motion in longitudinal direction, each subject was asked to perform isometric plantar flexion twice. Preliminary results show that the proposed visualization methods provide both spatial and temporal details and they are helpful to study muscle contractions. One of the proposed quantitative measures was also tested on a patient with unilateral limb dysfunction caused by cerebral infarction. The measure revealed distinct patterns between the normal and the dysfunctional lower limb. The proposed framework and its associated quantitative measures could potentially be used to complement electromyography (EMG) and torque signals in functional assessment of skeletal muscles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jizhou Li
- Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
| | - Yongjin Zhou
- Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Interdisciplinary Division of Biomedical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China.
| | - Kamen Ivanov
- Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
| | - Yong-Ping Zheng
- Interdisciplinary Division of Biomedical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China
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Li H, Zhao G, Zhou Y, Chen X, Ji Z, Wang L. Relationship of EMG/SMG features and muscle strength level: an exploratory study on tibialis anterior muscles during plantar-flexion among hemiplegia patients. Biomed Eng Online 2014; 13:5. [PMID: 24461052 PMCID: PMC3923562 DOI: 10.1186/1475-925x-13-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2013] [Accepted: 01/22/2014] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Improvement in muscle strength is an important aim for the rehabilitation of hemiplegia patients. Presently, the rehabilitation prescription depends on the evaluation results of muscle strength, which are routinely estimated by experienced physicians and therefore not finely quantitative. Widely-used quantification methods for disability, such as Barthel Index (BI) and motor component of Functional Independent Measure (M-FIM), yet have limitations in their application, since both of them differentiated disability better in lower than higher disability, and they are subjective and recorded in wide scales. In this paper, to explore finely quantitative measures for evaluation of muscle strength level (MSL), we start with the study on quantified electromyography (EMG) and sonomyography (SMG) features of tibialis anterior (TA) muscles among hemiplegia patients. METHODS 12 hemiplegia subjects volunteered to perform several sets of plantar-flexion movements in the study, and their EMG signals and SMG signals were recorded on TA independently to avoid interference. EMG data were filtered and then the root-mean-square (RMS) was computed. SMG signals, specifically speaking, the muscle thickness of TA, were manually measured by two experienced operators using ultrasonography. Reproducibility of the SMG assessment on TA between operators was evaluated by non-parametric test (independent sample T test). Possible relationship between muscle thickness changes (TC) of TA and muscle strength level of hemiplegia patients was estimated. RESULTS Mean of EMG RMS between subjects is found linearly correlated with MSL (R2 = 0.903). And mean of TA muscle TC amplitudes is also linearly correlated with MSL among dysfunctional legs (R2 = 0.949). Moreover, rectified TC amplitudes (dysfunctional leg/ healthy leg, DLHL) and rectified EMG signals (DLHL) are found in linear correlation with MSL, with R2 = 0.756 and R2 = 0.676 respectively. Meanwhile, the preliminary results demonstrate that patients' peak values of TC are generally proportional to their personal EMG peak values in 12 dysfunctional legs and 12 healthy legs (R2 = 0.521). CONCLUSIONS It's concluded that SMG could be a promising option to quantitatively estimate MSL for hemiplegia patients during rehabilitation besides EMG. However, after this exploratory study, they should be further investigated on a larger number of subjects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Huihui Li
- Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Key Lab for Low-cost Healthcare, Shenzhen, China
| | - Guoru Zhao
- Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Key Lab for Low-cost Healthcare, Shenzhen, China
| | - Yongjin Zhou
- Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Key Lab for Low-cost Healthcare, Shenzhen, China
| | - Xin Chen
- Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
| | - Zhen Ji
- Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
| | - Lei Wang
- Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Key Lab for Low-cost Healthcare, Shenzhen, China
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Jizhou Li, Yongjin Zhou, Yong-Ping Zheng. An indirect method to estimate the force output of triceps surae muscle. ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY SOCIETY. IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY SOCIETY. ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2014; 2014:5832-5835. [PMID: 25571322 DOI: 10.1109/embc.2014.6944954] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
Estimation of force output generated by human muscle is an essential routine of clinical rehabilitation assessment, and could provide considerable insight into rehabilitation, motor control and robotics. Indirect methods for the estimation of force output could be helpful when a bulky and expensive dynamometer is not on hand. Electromyography has been used in previous studies to quantify it in the literature. However, the force output is a summation of the motor unit action potentials, and thus the contributions and performances of superficial and deep-lying muscles could hardly be separated from each other. In this preliminary study, we applied ultrasonography (US) to explore the feasibility of estimating triceps surae force output during isometric plantar flexion with spatial resolution from superficial to deeper muscles. The local deformations of US images are extracted to represent the morphological changes during force generation. It was found US could be utilized to decently (coefficient of determination at 0.875 ± 0.051 and normalized root mean square error 0.160 ± 0.035) estimate the force output and the measured force by a dynamometer.
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31
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Li Q, Ni D, Yi W, Chen S, Wang T, Chen X. Use of optical flow to estimate continuous changes in muscle thickness from ultrasound image sequences. ULTRASOUND IN MEDICINE & BIOLOGY 2013; 39:2194-2201. [PMID: 23969163 DOI: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2013.06.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2012] [Revised: 05/04/2013] [Accepted: 06/21/2013] [Indexed: 06/02/2023]
Abstract
Muscle thickness is one of the most widely used parameters for quantifying muscle function. Ultrasonography is frequently used to estimate changes in muscle thickness in both static and dynamic contractions. Conventionally, most such measurements are conducted by manual analysis of ultrasound images. This manual approach is time consuming, subjective, susceptible to error and not suitable for measuring dynamic change. In this study, we developed an automated tracking method based on an optical flow algorithm using an affine motion model. The goal of the study was to evaluate the performance of the proposed method by comparing it with the manual approach and by determining its repeatability. Real-time B-mode ultrasound was used to examine the rectus femoris during voluntary contraction. The coefficient of multiple correlation (CMC) was used to quantify the level of agreement between the two methods and the repeatability of the proposed method. The two methods were also compared by linear regression and Bland-Altman analysis. The findings indicated that the results obtained using the proposed method were in good agreement with those obtained using the manual approach (CMC = 0.97 ± 0.02, difference = -0.06 ± 0.22 mm) and were highly repeatable (CMC = 0.91 ± 0.07). In conclusion, the automated method proposed here provides an accurate, highly repeatable and efficient approach to the estimation of muscle thickness during muscle contraction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiaoliang Li
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China; National-Regional Key Technology Engineering Laboratory for Medical Ultrasound, Shenzhen, China; Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, Shenzhen, China
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Ling S, Zhou Y, Chen Y, Zhao YQ, Wang L, Zheng YP. Automatic Tracking of Aponeuroses and Estimation of Muscle Thickness in Ultrasonography: A Feasibility Study. IEEE J Biomed Health Inform 2013; 17:1031-8. [PMID: 24240721 DOI: 10.1109/jbhi.2013.2253787] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
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Chen Y, Zhou Y, Ivanov K, Li J, Shu Y, Wang L. Pre-processing for muscle motion analysis: adaptive guided image filtering for speckle reduction of ultrasound images. ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY SOCIETY. IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY SOCIETY. ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2013; 2013:4026-9. [PMID: 24110615 DOI: 10.1109/embc.2013.6610428] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Skeletal muscle is an important tissue of human body, and its contractions control and regulate body motions. Muscle contraction results in morphological changes of the related muscles. Ultrasound imaging is an effective tool for studying muscle architectures and monitoring the morphological changes of muscles. The latter process can be realized with a motion estimation algorithm. However, ultrasound images are usually corrupted by speckle noises and performance of motion estimation methods can be significantly affected by the noises. To get a better performance in motion analysis, in this paper, as a pre-processing step, an adaptive filter named adaptive guided image filtering (AGF) is suggested to reduce speckle noises. We first transformed the multiplicative noise model into an additive one by taking the logarithm of the original speckled data, then performed AGF to obtain the filtered image, and finally took the tackled image back into exponent. Experimental results showed that AGF had a better performance in terms of noise attenuation and edge preservation compared with other standard filters. In quantitative results, the filtered images also had the highest Peak-Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) using AGF. It's believed that AGF is a good choice for the pre-processing stage of muscle motion analysis.
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Li Q, Zhang H, Qi S, Qiu M, Chen X, Chen S, Wang T. Continuous detection of muscle aspect ratio using keypoint tracking in ultrasonography. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 2013; 60:2361-9. [PMID: 23568476 DOI: 10.1109/tbme.2013.2256786] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Muscle aspect ratio of cross-sectional area is one of the most widely used parameters for quantifying muscle function in both diagnosis and rehabilitation assessment. Ultrasound imaging has been frequently used to noninvasively study the characteristics of human muscles as a reliable method. However, the aspect ratio measurement is traditionally conducted by the manual digitization of reference points; thus, it is subjective, time-consuming, and prone to errors. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to continuously detect the muscle aspect ratio. Two keypoint pairs are manually digitized on the lateral and longitudinal borders at the first frame, and automatically tracked by an optical flow technique at the subsequent frames. The muscle aspect ratio is thereby obtained based on the estimated muscle width and thickness. Six ultrasound sequences from different subjects are used to evaluate this method, and the overall coefficient of multiple correlation of the results between manual and proposed methods is 0.97 ± 0.02. The linear regression shows that a good linear correlation between the results of the two methods is obtained (R(2) = 0.974), with difference -0.01 ± 0.16. The method proposed here provides an accurate, high repeatable, and efficient approach for estimating muscle aspect ratio during human motion, thus justifying its application in biological sciences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiaoliang Li
- National-Regional Key Technology Engineering Laboratory for Medical Ultrasound, Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.
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Islam MA, Sundaraj K, Ahmad RB, Ahamed NU. Mechanomyogram for muscle function assessment: a review. PLoS One 2013; 8:e58902. [PMID: 23536834 PMCID: PMC3594217 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058902] [Citation(s) in RCA: 68] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/17/2012] [Accepted: 02/08/2013] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Mechanomyography (MMG) has been extensively applied in clinical and experimental practice to examine muscle characteristics including muscle function (MF), prosthesis and/or switch control, signal processing, physiological exercise, and medical rehabilitation. Despite several existing MMG studies of MF, there has not yet been a review of these. This study aimed to determine the current status on the use of MMG in measuring the conditions of MFs. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Five electronic databases were extensively searched for potentially eligible studies published between 2003 and 2012. Two authors independently assessed selected articles using an MS-Word based form created for this review. Several domains (name of muscle, study type, sensor type, subject's types, muscle contraction, measured parameters, frequency range, hardware and software, signal processing and statistical analysis, results, applications, authors' conclusions and recommendations for future work) were extracted for further analysis. From a total of 2184 citations 119 were selected for full-text evaluation and 36 studies of MFs were identified. The systematic results find sufficient evidence that MMG may be used for assessing muscle fatigue, strength, and balance. This review also provides reason to believe that MMG may be used to examine muscle actions during movements and for monitoring muscle activities under various types of exercise paradigms. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE Overall judging from the increasing number of articles in recent years, this review reports sufficient evidence that MMG is increasingly being used in different aspects of MF. Thus, MMG may be applied as a useful tool to examine diverse conditions of muscle activity. However, the existing studies which examined MMG for MFs were confined to a small sample size of healthy population. Therefore, future work is needed to investigate MMG, in examining MFs between a sufficient number of healthy subjects and neuromuscular patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Md Anamul Islam
- AI-Rehab Research Group, Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP), Kompleks Pauh Putra, Arau, Perlis, Malaysia.
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