Projektakademie Medizintechnik: Method for assessment of muscular co-contractions in osteoarthritis

能够有效减少肌肉共收缩量的治疗装置在关节炎护理中具有重要的潜力。要证明这些装置的有效性，在今天是不可能的。表面肌电图作为测量肌肉活动的唯一非侵入性方法，在方法学上面临着巨大的挑战。这些因素包括非常高的个体间和个体内部变异性，对噪声和串扰的强烈敏感性，以及对广泛信号处理的需求。我们自己的初步研究表明，至少在目前的技术状态下，肌电图的选择性不足以重复检测肌肉共同收缩的临床相关差异。器械矫形器，可以测量身体各部分之间的力和力矩，在目前的关节炎研究中没有使用。该项目的目的是开发和验证一种新的测量方法来评估骨关节炎的肌肉共同收缩，基于器械矫形器和肌电图的结合。

Therapeutic devices that are able to effectively reduce the amount of muscular co-contractions have significant potential in arthritis care. The proof of effectiveness of such devices is today not possible. The surface electromyography as the only non-invasive method for the measurement of muscle activity is subject to strong methodological challenges. These include very high inter- and intra-individual variability, strong susceptibility to noise and cross-talk, and the need for extensive signal processing. Our own preliminary investigations that SEMG, at least in the current state of the technology, is not selective enough to reproducible detect clinically relevant differences in muscular co-contractions.Instrumented orthotics, that allows the measurement of forces and moments between the body segments, are not used in the current arthritis research today. The aim of this project is to develop and to validate new measurement method for assessment the muscular co-contractions in osteoarthritis, based on a combination of instrumented orthosis with SEMG.