Rectus Abdominis ElectroMyoGraphy and MechanoMyoGraphy comparison for the detection of cough

Abstract

We recently developed a novel active implant for the treatment of severe stress urinary incontinence. This innovative medical device has been developed with the main purpose of reducing the mean urethral occlusive pressure of the current prosthesis. This goal is achieved by detecting circumstances implying either high or low intra-abdominal pressures by a single 3-axis accelerometer. In fact, posture and activity of the patient are monitored in real time. We investigated in this study the possibility of detecting cough events (one of the main causes of urine loss in incontinent patient) by MechanoMyoGraphy (MMG) of the Rectus Abdominis (RA) using the same accelerometer. We compared MMG signal detection characteristics (burst onset times and RMS values) to the method of reference, the ElectroMyoGraphy (EMG). It is shown that detection of cough effort by MMG presents lower performances, mostly in terms of cough anticipation, than EMG detection. However, MMG still remains a good option for an implantable system comparing to implantable EMG disadvantages.

Novel insights into skeletal muscle function by mechanomyography: from the laboratory to the field

“…Five studies focused on patients with spinal cord injuries [109][110][111][112][113], two on patients with Parkinson's disease [27,114] and with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [115,116], one study on patients with myopathy [117]. The other six studies were conducted on healthy, able-body participants [20,28,30,[118][119][120].…”

“…Lamraoui et al [118] reported that, although detection of cough effort by MMG presents lower performances than EMG detection, mostly in terms of cough anticipation, MMG might be a useful tool in detecting cough event because of its better portability.…”

“…As far as the first application is concerned, MMG signal permits to discriminate differences in muscle activation between patients and controls. Although the sensitivity of MMG is not significantly higher than EMG, in the light of the lack of influence of the change in the skin impedance due to sweating and its better Sport Sci Health portability [29,118,130], some authors consider the MMG as a reliable alternative method in assessing neuromuscular activation and MTU behaviour in those conditions where the EMG cannot be easily detected. In consideration of the second point, the use of MMG as a trigger to activate or deactivate some devices represents to date a promising area of investigation.…”

Use of electromyographic signals for characterization of voluntary coughing in humans with and without spinal cord injury—A systematic review

“…The analysed studies present valuable information about the use of EMG as a tool for evaluating the coughing mechanism, with the predominance of the use of surface EMG‐S (Estenne & Gorini, ; Fujiwara, Hara, & Chino, ; Hsu et al, ; Lamraoui et al, ; Lasserson et al, )…”

“…We included in this review published articles with different methodologies for the acquisition of electromyographic signals to check respiratory events, especially voluntary coughing or related activities, such as forced expiration compared with spontaneous breathing. However, as described in Table , the conducted surveys are mostly composed of observational studies (Deffieux et al, ; Fujiwara et al, ; Hsu et al, ; Ito et al, ; Lamraoui et al, ; Lasserson et al, ; Munyard et al, ), which may represent weaker evidence compared with randomized clinical trials. The study developed by Ito et al () was the only found randomized clinical trial.…”