Electromyography

Introduction: The use of electromyography (EMG) to monitor muscle tissue from surface skin provides important information about the components of electrical activity—namely motor unit (MU) activation—during a muscle contraction (Cashaback, Cluff & Potvin, 2013). Observing electrical activity of a muscle with EMG is a user friendly and non-invasive tool researchers use when investigating muscle physiology (Camata et al., 2009). EMG is commonly used to correlate EMG signal with fatigue by…

males than in females. Symptoms of DMD include skeletal deformities, fatigue, learning and intellectual developmental delay, difficulty breathing, and heart disease. Diagnosing DMD is done through serum CPK, muscle biopsy, genetic testing, and electromyography to confirm inheritance of the gene and progression of disease. At this time, there is no cure for this devastating disease yet new treatment modalities are being created to support quality of life. Treatment options…

Experiment 1 showed the isometric force generated by the ADM muscle of the test subject was able to be measured accurately and quantified into EMG activity as shown in results from Table 1. The established threshold of 2.2mA was used for subsequent increases in stimulation from the threshold to show that more motor units of both Type I and Type II were simultaneously being recruited. The size of the twitch force at 20% above the threshold, 2.6mA, was not a drastic jump as was 40%, 3.2mA, which…

B – dystrophin is part of a group of a protein complex that works together to strengthen muscle fibres and protect them from injury as muscles contract and relax. Dystrophin is produced by the DMD gene and mutations cause Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies, which lead to reduced amounts of dystrophin in skeletal muscle cells. This reduced amount of dystrophin causes muscles to weaken and damage over time, causing the build up of fat rather than muscle. This pseudohypertrophy causes the…

Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) or Steinert disease is a rare genetic multisystem disorder. Typical symptoms are delayed relaxation of muscles (myotonia) and slowly increased muscle weakness (dystrophy). It also affects the eye, heart, endocrine system, and central nervous system [1]. The prevelance is estimated at 1:10,000 [2]. DM1 is caused by an unstable (CTG) microsatellite repeat expansion within the DMPK (dystrophia myotonica protein kinase) 3- untranslated region (3’-UTR) in chromosome…

Burgen, M., Stam, H., & Pangailia, R. F. (2015, July 10). Prevalence of Fatigue, Pain, and Affective Disorders in Adults With Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Their Associations With Quality of Life. In Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Retrieved October 6, 2016. In this article, Michael Burgen, Henk Stam, and Robert Pangailia explain how muscular dystrophy is a genetic, recessive, neuromuscular disease in which there is a lack of protein dystrophin which helps stabilize…

Sydney Elbert The first account of Muscular Dystrophy was in 1830. Sir Charles bell wrote an essay about a disease that caused weakness in boys. Six years later another scientist found two other boys that developed weakness, muscle damage, and damaged muscle tissue that was replaced with fat and connective tissue. 1850 more and more were reported in medical journals of having lost ability to walk, weakness, and death at an early age. Later on French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne found thirteen…

Muscular dystrophies (MD) are diseases that causes muscle mass loss and weakness (this is normally in children but can happen in adults). This is caused by abnormalities in genes that interfere with proper production of protein to form healthy muscles for voluntary movement. When the brain sends signals to a muscle to contract, it goes through the spinal cord and peripheral nerves to the neuromuscular junction, releasing the chemical acetylcholine that triggers muscle contraction. From here,…

It had been determined that specific types of Muscular Dystrophy only affect men. For instance the Duchenne is most commonly known for affecting young children, but Duchenne muscular dystrophy is also know to only affect makes. This type of condition and reductions the muscle in mass and causes it to diminish and become weaker and weaker. This disorder is know to have significant affects on young boy, and by the age of 12 they will require the use of a wheel hair. With time the limbs and spin…

There are more than 30 different genetic diseases that are classified as muscular dystrophies. Muscular dystrophy is the weakness and degeneration of the skeletal muscles that often control movement. In muscular dystrophy, abnormal genes, also called mutations, interfere with the production of the proteins that are needed to form healthy muscle in the body. There are many kinds of muscular dystrophies and symptoms are more than likely begin during childhood. With different kinds of muscular…