A preliminary study of in vivo muscle behavior during walking among hemiplegia patients

How to quantitatively evaluate the hemiplegia level for a hemiplegia patient is still a challenging problem. In this study, we proposed an innovative method to investigate the in vivo muscle behavior of hemiplegia patient. We developed an experimental platform for simultaneous acquisition of ultrasonography (US), electromyography (EMG), and joint angle during dynamic muscle contraction. By utilizing this platform, we measured five hemiplegia patients during walking and analyzed the characteristics of their muscle behaviors. The results suggested that the proposed multimodal signal acquisition and integration platform is capable of providing novel and complete information about in vivo muscle contraction. The proposed platform is a potentially useful tool for the assessment of hemiplegia patients in clinical applications.