Wireless electromyography prototype for clinical gait analysis in hemiplegic patients

Abstract

In the Gait Laboratory of the Children's Orthopedic Hospital (HOI), a scientific method for the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of spastic hemiplegic gait (SH) is applied. There, the patient's physical, articular, anthropometric, kinematic, kinetic, and electromyographic records are collected. Electromyography measures and records muscle activity during gait. The Gait Laboratory evaluates and records the activity of the lower limb muscles. However, on many occasions, signal reception is so poor that it is disregarded, resulting in incomplete reports. These devices use closed technology, and the solution is to create a circuit with open technology and employ readily available technology such as Bluetooth for wireless transmission. This research is an ongoing project in the simulation phase, which aims to analyze the context of gait assessment, diagnosis, and treatment, especially hyperactive gait (HE), in order to propose a non-invasive electromyographic circuit using readily available, low-cost, locally sourced technology, complemented by Bluetooth. Proteus (Labcenter Electronics) and CircuitMaker (Protel International) are being used.