Electrical Impedance Tomography for Real-Time Monitoring of Muscle Activity in Robot-Assisted Rehabilitation

Abstract

This work looks at how Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) can be used in robot-assisted rehabilitation to make it easier to watch how muscle activity changes in real time. Quantitative methods are used in this study to look into how well EIT works, including full analyses and comparisons with common tracking methods like Electromyography (EMG). Both EIT and EMG are used to record the participants' mean and peak muscle activation levels as they do a set of Upper Limb, Lower Limb, and Full Body exercises. The study's findings show that EIT is incredibly flexible when it comes to capturing complex patterns of muscle activation across a wide range of rehabilitation routines. Each participant's involvement is shown by different patterns of muscle activation, and these patterns can be seen across different types of exercise. We can learn a lot about how muscles work during rehabilitation by measuring their mean and peak activation levels. This helps us see how well EIT works as a tracking tool. A very important step in validating EIT is to compare it to EMG readings. This shows how consistent and accurate EIT is in real-time monitoring situations. The high level of agreement between the two methods shows that EIT is a reliable alternative to standard monitoring methods, providing an easy to use and non-invasive way to measure muscle activity. The results of this study are even stronger because they include quantitative analyses and a detailed look at system performance data. We carefully check things like signal-to-noise ratio, reconstruction accuracy, and reliability, which shows how strong and dependable the combined EIT system is. These metrics are important for showing how well the system can measure things accurately and reliably in changing rehabilitation situations. This study adds to the growing amount of research on EIT uses in rehabilitation by showing that it can be a useful tool for keeping track of real-time muscle activity. This study opens the door for EIT to be widely used in rehabilitation by showing how muscle activation changes over time and proving its effectiveness against well-known methods. This will eventually lead to better patient outcomes and more effective rehabilitation.