Kinesiologist David Gabriel knows the thought of getting a needle is tormenting for many people.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s part of the reason why the Brock University professor and his team of graduate students are working on improving the accuracy of needle-free electromyography (EMG).<\/p>\n
Years ago, Gabriel worked at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where part of his job was trying to calm the nerves of patients undergoing traditional electromyography tests, which measure electrical activity in muscles.<\/p>\n
The EMGs are part of a battery of tests doctors use to determine if someone has a neuromuscular disease such as muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson\u2019s. To capture and record this electrical activity, doctors have typically inserted needles into the muscles of patients, who are then asked to contract these muscles by flexing, bending, lifting objects and performing other movements of varying intensities.<\/p>\n
It can be a painful ordeal, as Gabriel witnessed.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust to have somebody there to hold hands and to help people get over the fear of the procedure, that made an impact on me,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n
Decades later, the professor of Biomechanics and his team have found a way to gather the same level of sophisticated readings \u2014 minus the needle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve developed software that allows us to gain more information about how the nervous system is controlling the muscle using a non-invasive electrode,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
In the conventional procedure, the needle taps into a bundle of muscle fibres called a motor unit. The electrical activity gets greater as more muscles, and, hence, more force, are needed to perform a task.<\/p>\n
The needle picks up a signal from the motor unit and transmits the signal to the EMG, which breaks it down into five electrical measurements: amplitude, waveform, time duration, phase and peaks.<\/p>\n
The readings can give a clear indication of disease.<\/p>\n
Non-invasive electrodes placed on the skin have also been used to measure electrical activity in conventional testing. But these electrodes pick up readings from dozens of motor units at a time, making it difficult to discern clear patterns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe developed a pattern classification technique that analyses all five measures you would normally get from a needle electrode,\u201d says Gabriel. \u201cOur technique says \u2018OK, when these measures change this or that way, here is what\u2019s going on underneath the skin inside the muscle.\u2019 Before, you needed the needle to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gabriel stresses that it\u2019s early days for the new surface electrode technique, which he and graduate students Greig Inglis, Lara Green, Tom Hoshizaki, Robert Kumar and Matt Mallette are developing.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, we\u2019re not at a stage where we can replace the needle, but at this stage, we\u2019re starting to get some of the same results,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Gabriel says even if some of the needles can be replaced, easing patients\u2019 pain and fears is well worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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