Emg Test For Parkinson’s

Tests To Rule Out Other Conditions

Blood tests can help rule out other possible causes of the symptoms, such as abnormal thyroid hormone levels or liver damage.

An MRI or CT scan can check for signs of a stroke or brain tumor, which may cause similar symptoms.

Hydrocephalus due to atrophy can occur with some types of dementia and would be visible with one of these imaging tests. If the person has neurologic symptoms but a normal scan result, Parkinsons disease may be present.

The doctor a lumbar puncture to rule out inflammation or a brain infection.

Results Of Large Fiber Neuropathy Assessment

NCS/EMG was performed in 39 patients . 12 out of the 26 PD and 4 out of the 13 from the parkinsonism group had abnormal NCS/EMG results. As expected, patients with abnormalities suggestive of peripheral neuropathy on the screening neurological exam were more likely to have abnormal EMG . Neuropathy prevalence was similar in the groups with PD and parkinsonism , whether PN was assessed by SWT, NCS/EMG or clinically .

Fig. 1

Part a shows mean peroneal compound motor action potential amplitudes and mean sural sensory nerve action potential amplitudes in patients with Parkinsons disease . PD all patients refers to mean values from the whole group , PD no PN refers to mean values from PD patients without large fiber neuropathy, PD SFN refers to patients with PD and small fiber neuropathy and PD Neuropathy to mean values in patients with PD and large-fiber neuropathy. Part b shows mean values of peroneal motor and sural sensory conduction velocities in the same groups

Fig. 2

What Happens During An Emg Test And Nerve Conduction Study

For an EMG test:

• You will sit or lie down on a table or bed.
• Your provider will clean the skin over the muscle being tested.
• Your provider will place a needle electrode into the muscle. A needle electrode is a special wire that a mild electric current flows through. You may have slight pain or discomfort when the electrode is inserted.
• The machine will record the muscle activity while your muscle is at rest.
• Then you will be asked to tighten the muscle slowly and steadily. The machine will record this activity.
• The electrode may be moved to record activity in different muscles.
• The electrical activity is recorded and shown on a video screen. The activity is displayed as wavy and spiky lines. The activity may also be recorded and sent to an audio speaker. You may hear popping sounds when you contract your muscle.

For a nerve conduction study:

If you are having both tests, the nerve conduction study will be done first.

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How Is Muscle Activity Modified By Interventions

Only one study assessed variability of gait EMG following dopaminergic medication. Pourmoghaddam et al. observed decreased multi-muscle regularity, determined through nonlinear analysis methods, during the ON state. This implies increased variability of EMG patterns which could contribute to postural stability not being well controlled by dopaminergic medication, although more evidence is needed in support. Two studies have reported that step time variability decreased with dopaminergic medication and Gilat et al. observed this variability was associated with altered striatal, limbic and cerebellar activity,.

What Is The Quality Of The Reviewed Studies

Overall, quality scores were mediocre for both non-intervention and intervention studies. The main points that studies scored low on were sample size justification, electrode placement procedures and signal processing techniques. Individuals with PD exhibit great heterogeneity and generally high inter- and intra- subject gait EMG variability necessitating greater sample sizes than for HOA. However, the median sample size was only twenty-two and no study in this review performed power analysis to justify their selection of participant number. Most studies included a greater proportion of males, reflecting the gender bias in PD although some studies did not specify gender. Gender differences in muscle activity during walking have previously been reported, indicating it is an important factor. Only four studies determined electrode location using validated guidelines such as the SENIAM guidelines. Identification of the optimal electrode site helps ensure the signals with higher signal to noise ratio are recorded from the selected muscle with minimal cross-talk from adjacent muscles.

Over half of the studies did not report any signal normalisation methods,,,,,,,,. Such normalisation is essential to allow comparisons of EMG between muscles, sessions and participants as factors such as thickness of adipose tissue, presence of oedema and number and orientation of muscle fibres will modify amplitude,. Excluding normalisation can invalidate subsequent results.

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Surface Emg Signal Features Of Parkinsons Disease May Support Interpretation Of Home

S. Rissanen, M. Koivu, P. Hartikainen, A. Sinokki, P. Karjalainen, E. Pekkonen

Category:Parkinson’s Disease: Neurophysiology

Objective: To define reference values for surface electromyography -based signal parameters in Parkinsons disease based on previously measured data. These reference values may help in the interpretation of home-based measurement data from PD patients.

Background: A wearable system was recently presented for ambulatory monitoring of surface EMG and kinematic measurements in PD . The system assess motor fluctuations based on computed parameters of surface EMG and 3D acceleration as a function of time.

Method: The previously gathered surface EMG data consist of 225 patient measurements and 90 healthy control measurements. During the EMG measurements, the subjects were performing isometric and dynamic contractions of the biceps brachii . The group mean ± std values were computed for the following EMG parameters: kurtosis, burst frequency, correlation dimension and recurrence rate. In addition, the sample entropy and the acceleration power at frequency bands 0.2-4 Hz and 4-9 Hz were computed and combined with EMG signal parameters to form the first principal component for evaluating the overall abnormality of the neuromuscular function and movement.

Ambulatory EMG appears to reliably measure neuromuscular dysfunctions in PD.

To cite this abstract in AMA style:

Mov Disord.

Central Nervous System Vs Peripheral Nervous System

Neurologic control of the body is very broadly divided into two systems the central nervous system which consists of the brain and the spinal cord and the peripheral nervous system which consists of the network of nerves that are outside the brain and spinal cord, and innervate the limbs and the organs of the body.

The peripheral nervous system is composed of three types of nerves: autonomic nerves, sensory nerves and motor nerves. Different types of nerves have varying diameters and are generally divided into those that are small and those that are large.

• Autonomic nerves exert control over functions that are not under conscious direction such as respiration, heart function, blood pressure, digestion, urination, sexual function, pupillary response, and much more. This information is conveyed on small fibers.
• Motor nerves carry information on limb movement from the brain and spinal cord to the limbs. This information is conveyed on large fibers.
• Sensory nerves carry information on the various sensations felt by the limb to the brain and spinal cord. There are two main types of sensory nerves:
• Pain and temperature fibers which are small fibers
• Vibration and joint position sense fibers which are large fibers

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Protocol Considerations For Emg

• Real-world walking. Investigating gait during real-world activity is desirable to understand motor strategies in a natural environment although current technological limitations make long term recordings challenging.

• Sample size. Greater numbers of participants and more stride cycles are necessary.

• Muscle selection. Muscles representing all major muscle groups acting on the ankle, knee and hip joints in the sagittal and coronal planes should ideally be recorded to permit analyses of multi-muscle activation patterns and underlying neural control systems to be undertaken.

• Electrode placement. A clear statement must be included regarding methods used to identify electrode placement and established guidelines followed.

• Longitudinal studies. This will inform us how motor patterns change with age and disease progression and help establish EMG characteristics as biomarkers.

• Additional gait and cortical parameters. Parameters such as joint kinematics and kinetics as well as cortical activity measured with mobile, wireless systems such as functional near infrared spectroscopy or electroencephalography will enable us to relate EMG to gait impairment and cortical processes.

The Peripheral Nervous System And Parkinsons Disease

It is well-established that the autonomic nervous system can be significantly affected in PD causing symptoms such as constipation, urinary dysfunction and orthostatic hypotension. The autonomic nerves that bring signals to the gut for example, can be directly affected by Lewy body-like accumulations and neurodegeneration.

What remains unclear is if motor and sensory nerves are also affected in PD.

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Changes In The Emg Pattern Can Distinguish Individuals Diagnosed With Pd From Healthy Individuals

As we outlined in the introduction, PET and SPECT scans are sensitive at distinguishing PD subjects from healthy subjects. However, obvious limitations of cost, non-portability, safety concerns with repeated scanning and limited access of scanners in most clinical settings may preclude the use of these scans. While simple and non-invasive measures, such as tapping and/or olfaction can distinguish PD subjects from healthy subjects, the sensitivity of these measures do not approach the levels demonstrated by PET and SPECT scans . They also do not demonstrate the sensitivity of our measures.

The fact that specificity dropped to 90% was due to the parameters related to the duration of the first agonist burst for one initially healthy subject being similar to those parameters exhibited by the individuals with PD . While this healthy subject initially had no clinical signs of PD, her EMG pattern was similar to that seen in the PD subjects. This raises the question as to whether she might have had pre-clinical PD. Upon re-evaluation of this subject 30 months later, this subject was now diagnosed with PD. When the ROC analysis was re-calculated and the initially healthy subject was now included in the PD group, the specificity increased to 100% while the sensitivity remained at 100%. Although no definitive conclusions can be drawn from a single subject, this suggests that the EMG pattern abnormalities may precede the onset of clinical signs of PD .

What Tests Might I Have

Your doctor may want to start by testing your blood or doing a brain scan to rule out other conditions.

People who have Parkinsonâs disease donât make enough of a brain chemical called dopamine, which helps you move. If those first tests donât show a reason for your symptoms, your doctor may ask you to try a medication called carbidopa-levodopa, which your brain can turn into dopamine. If your symptoms get much better after you start the drug, your doctor probably will tell you that you have Parkinsonâs disease.

If the medication doesnât work for you and thereâs no other explanation for your issues, your doctor might suggest an imaging test called a DaTscan. This uses a small amount of a radioactive drug and a special scanner, called a single photon emission computed tomography scanner, to see how much dopamine is in your brain. This test can’t tell you for sure that you have Parkinson’s disease, but it can give your doctor more information to work with.

It can take a long time for some people to get a diagnosis. You may need to see your neurologist regularly so they can keep an eye on your symptoms and eventually figure out whatâs behind them.

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Temporal Changes Of Gs Activity

In contrast to the TA muscle, total duration of GS activity during the gait cycle was not different between conditions , although a trend could be observed towards longer lasting EMG activity before freezing . Examining the pattern within the different phases of the gait cycle, the duration of stance activity showed a shortening before freezing in comparison with the stop condition only. Betweenstride differences prior to freezing showed a progressively shorter stance activity in the stride closest to the freeze compared with the second one away from the freeze , for the right leg only. This trend was near significant .

We also found a clear alteration of both onset and termination of activation of the GS muscle pointing again to a premature timing before freezing, as summarized in Table . Descriptions of GS activity in healthy young and older people indicate that the main GS burst occurs during terminal stance lasting into preswing , with peak activity at 50 . In this study, the GS bursts started on average at 8.7% of the gait cycle and lasted up to 58.1%. Figure shows that, in the example subject the peak of the GS burst occurred at the beginning of terminal stance in the normal condition and was mildly earlier during the stop. Before freezing, no peak activity was present during the stance phase. Instead, it seemed to occur during swing phase.

Results Of Small Fiber Neuropathy Assessment

Skin Wrinkling Test was performed in 49 patients, 33 with PD and 15 with other forms of parkinsonism. No statistical difference was observed in the percentage of patients with abnormal SWT between the 2 groups: 19 out of 33 of the PD group and 6 out of 15 of the patients with parkinsonism . Among the patients with evidence of small fiber neuropathy in the PD group, 10 % had diabetes, 5 % thyroid disease, 5 % B12 deficiency and 5 % had been treated for leprosy in the past while additional 15 % had B12 levels < 300. Among the patients with evidence of small fiber neuropathy in the parkinsonism group, 12.5 % had diabetes mellitus. Therefore, in 65 % of the PD patients and among 87.5 % of the patients with parkinsonism, no common etiology of peripheral neuropathy was identified.

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Electromyography Signals As Biomarkers For Parkinsons Disease

Objective/Rationale:A simple, painless and reliable method to detect Parkinsons disease at an early stage is very important to patients, doctors and researchers. Doctors want to help patients early, and scientists want to select patients for their research who will help in development of better drugs. We hope that the changes in electrical activity of hand muscles during handwriting will help in early detection of this disease.

Project Description:This study will use the analysis of electrical activity recorded from hand muscles during handwriting and at rest. There will be two groups of subjects: early Parkinsons disease patients and healthy people. The researcher analyzing the recorded data will not know who is a patient and who is healthy, as subjects will be identified only by numbers. Healthy volunteers will be of similar age as patients. In the course of this study, various properties of hand muscle electrical activity will be examined, and results will be verified by third party.

Relevance to Diagnosis/Treatment of Parkinsons disease:Conducting a blind study on a larger population of patients will provide essential results, which will show whether or not this method can potentially be established as a standard in diagnostics. It is also expected that this method will accelerate development of new treatments by providing an objective way to measure the effects of the new drugs.

Techniques And Experimental Design

The medical charts of all patients were also reviewed, including the risk factors for neuropathy. Basic laboratory tests were requested to pursue the work-up for neuropathy and/or clinical evaluation for the presence of thyroid diseases, diabetes mellitus or vitamin B12 deficiency. Although most of the patients routinely had prior evaluation for diabetes and thyroid disease by primary care physicians , screening for B12 deficiency could only be documented in 63.2 % of the PD and 56.3 % of the parkinsonism group.

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What Is Peripheral Neuropathy

Peripheral neuropathy is a condition in which there is damage to peripheral nerves. Symptoms depend on which type of nerves are affected and can result in:

• Weakness
• Numbness
• Pain or paresthesias in the limbs

The legs are more commonly affected than the arms because the nerves to the legs are longer than the arms and therefore more prone to damage.

Risk Factor Assessment For Large And Small Fiber Neuropathy

Patients with EMG abnormalities were older: 65.5±3.8 vs. 53±3 years , but abnormalities on SWT scores were not associated with age. In addition, patients with either SWT or EMG abnormalities were not more likely to be older than normal patients. Patients with EMG abnormalities were more likely to be older at the disease onset but there was no significant relationship between EMG abnormalities and disease duration. In addition, there wasnt any significant relationship between the age of disease onset or disease duration and SWT scores .

Regression analysis of tibial and peroneal CMAP amplitudes and conduction velocities or sural SNAP and conduction velocities versus the presence of DM or B12 levels was not significant. In addition, regression analysis also did not disclose any significant relationship between SWT scores and electrodiagnostic parameters, i.e. tibial and peroneal CMAP amplitudes and conduction velocities or between sural SNAP and conduction velocities.

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Is Early Diagnosis Possible

Experts are becoming more aware of symptoms of Parkinsons that precede physical manifestations. Clues to the disease that sometimes show up before motor symptoms and before a formal diagnosis are called prodromal symptoms. These include the loss of sense of smell, a sleep disturbance called REM behavior disorder, ongoing constipation thats not otherwise explained and mood disorders, such as anxiety and depression.

Research into these and other early symptoms holds promise for even more sensitive testing and diagnosis.

For example, biomarker research is trying to answer the question of who gets Parkinsons disease. Researchers hope that once doctors can predict that a person with very early symptoms will eventually get Parkinsons disease, those patients can be appropriately treated. At the very least, these advances could greatly delay progression.

Changing The Course Of Treatment

The EEG method could also have an effect on treatment. Currently, doctors can prescribe medication or implant an electric stimulator into the brain.

If there were real-time measures of how effective treatments are at reducing the negative symptoms of Parkinsons disease, treatments could be adjusted in real time, says co-author and University of California neuroscientist Bradley Voytek, Ph.D.

In the case of an invasive brain stimulator, this might mean only applying electric stimulation when its needed.

In the case of pharmacology, it would mean adjusting a drugs dose, much like continuous glucose monitoring done by an implant can signal a pump to adjust insulin levels as needed.

For the researchers, a bigger study examining EEG data, medical histories, and self-reports from patients is on the cards.

If the results prove to be consistent, people with Parkinsons could eventually carry out their own EEGs at home, sending the data straight to a neurologist for immediate analysis.

The only issue with this, notes Voytek, is that obtaining the right brain waves is not easy to do in a home environment. Further research will prove whether this, too, can be changed.

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