The electrical activity of respiratory muscles. An indirect measure to estimate airway reactivity in children with recurrent wheezing
Year: 2005
Type: other
Abstract: Introduction.A new method is being developed to investigate airway obstruction in young children by means of noninvasive electromyography (EMG) of diaphragmatic and intercostal muscles.The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility of the EMG measurements.Methods.Eleven adults, 39 school children (20 healthy, 19 asthmatic), and 16 preschool children were studied during tidal breathing on separate occasions, two for adults with a time interval of 3 weeks and three for children with time intervals of 1 and 24 hours.Single electrodes were placed on the second intercostal space left and right of the sternum, and at the level of the frontal and the dorsal diaphragm.Bipolar electrode pairs were placed on the rectus abdominis muscle. Results.A newly designed Digital Physiological Amplifier without any analog filtering was used to measure the EMG signals.Except for the average dorsal diaphragm EMG derivation in healthy school children on the second occasion, a significant correlation between the mean peak-to-peak inspiratory activity of average diaphragmatic and intercostal EMG was found in the different age groups on the different measurement occasions (p < 0 .05).In order to assess the repeatability we described the agreement between the repeated measurements within the same subjects.No significant differences were found between the measurements on the separate occasions. Conclusion.Our observations indicate that the EMG signals derived from the diaphragm and intercostal muscles are reproducible during tidal breathing, in different age groups with and without asthma.
Author: E.J.W. Maarsingh
Language: English
Subfield: Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Stichting Astma Bestrijding
OpenAlex ID: W1582816783