BeBoControl
Measuring the spatio-temporal distribution of muscle activity to determine properties and control patterns of pelvic floor muscles.
Factsheet
- Lead school School of Health Professions
- Additional schools School of Engineering and Computer Science
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Institute(s)
Institute for Human Centered Engineering (HUCE)
Physiotherapy -
Research unit(s)
Pelvic Floor Health
Fussbiomechanik und Technologie - Funding organisation SNSF
- Duration 01.02.2020 - 31.05.2022
- Project management Dr. Patric Eichelberger
- Head of project Dr. Patric Eichelberger
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Project staff
Prof. Dr. Lorenz Radlinger
Prof. Dr. Irene König
Prof. Dr. Thomas Niederhauser
Gerhard Kuert - Keywords Pelvic floor, Neuromuscular Control, High-Density Surface EMG
Situation
Stress Urinary Incontinence (SUI) has worldwide a prevalence of 28%, increasing with age and which is especially present in female athletes. Impact loads seem to be crucial for SUI and it is of great clinical and scientific importance to understand PFM functioning and disorders. Surface electromyography (sEMG) has been demonstrated to be a reliable and practical approach to assess PFM activity. Recent investigations used the promising approach of high-density sEMG (HD-sEMG) to assess PFM innervation patterns by looking at motor units (MUs), locations of innervation zones (IZs), muscle fiber conduction velocity (CV) and center of activity (CoA). Unfortunately, there is no vaginal HD-sEMG probe which meets the requirements of having an adaptable shape to individually fitting to vaginal introitus.
Course of action
This project aims to evaluate the use of flexible HD-sEMG probes for the assessment of PFM innervation patterns by applying a commercially available 64-channel expandable cardiology probe in simulations and laboratory experiments.
Looking ahead
The knowledge gained from this project will form the basis for developing PFM-specific HD-sEMG probes, which would give our research group a worldwide unique research advantage in PFM diagnostics.
