Influence of Functional Electrical Stimulation on Muscle and Nerve Rehabilitation in Post Targeted Muscle Reinnervation Surgery

Abstract

The control of multifunctional myoelectric prostheses is usually limited due to insufficient electromyography (EMG) signals, especially for individuals after above-elbow amputations. Targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR) is a method to recover the lost EMG sources, where the nerves associated with residual limbs are transferred onto targeted muscles to enable the recording of EMG signals that are sufficient for prosthesis control. Following TMR surgeries, the implanted nerves would require a relatively long time to grow during which the targeted muscles may atrophy due to denervation. To treat and accelerate the nerve growth, functional electrical stimulation (FES) has been proved to be an effective method. In this study, we investigated the influence of FES on targeted muscles and nerve rehabilitation after TMR surgery, based on rat models. Specifically, twelve Sprague Dawley adult male rats underwent TMR surgeries were equally divided into a control group and an experimental group, where only the experimental group was treated with FES. The results received four weeks post the TMR surgery indicate that both the targeted muscle preservation rate and the maximal contraction of the experimental group were significantly higher than those of the control group. This preliminary result suggests that FES treatment could improve the rehabilitation procedure for targeted muscles and implanted nerves of rats after TMR surgeries, which would potentially facilitate future clinic applications of TMR technique.