A Surface Electromyography Assessment of Patients Subsequent to Motor Vehicle Crash (MVC) and Controls to Establish Presence of Soft-Tissue Injury

Abstract

Introduction. The consequences of motor vehicle crashes (MVC) is broad, involving medical care, time lost from work, insurance claims, and even disability. Despite copious research, no one method has provided both dynamic evaluation and treatment direction. While many studies have been done, none have included comprehensive dynamic muscle imaging with spectral analysis.This pilot study was designed to determine if surface EMG (sEMG) data of cervico-scapular muscles during functional tasks could be used to accurately discriminate between healthy subjects and patients using an automated system of multivariate analyses.Method. Twenty subjects included ten patients in treatment post (recent) whiplash resulting from a MVC and ten controls who met rigid inclusion criteria. The PAC (Physiological Analysis Compilation) sEMG software system, using the Neck-PAC protocol, collected the data. Eliminating human interpretation for complete standardization, the file was then subjected to an automated system of data analysis with multiple clusters of data. This report format produces six scales related to various areas of function and a Physiological Total. One trained evaluator collected data from all twenty subjects. The evaluator then removed all identification and provided them to the author for segregation into the two groups tagged only with a random file number. The author performed the automated analysis on the files with no knowledge of symptoms or group status.Results. The author reviewed the results of the automated report generated and correctly placed all subjects in the appropriate “patient” or “control” group with 100% accuracy. For the patients, the report identified the severity, the major area of faults with specific findings. While this information is valuable for treatment, for the purpose of this study it was not utilized by the treating from which the data was collected.Conclusions. This study suggests that a high technology sEMG system, with multiple combinations of algorithms producing data analysis, can distinguish soft tissue injuries in patients with a whiplash injury from healthy controls.