Variability in surface electromyogram during gait analysis of low back pain patients

Abstract

This paper describes the analysis of the variance of the amplitude of surface electromyogram (SEMG) recorded from the L4/ L5 region of the erector spinae for healthy participants and people suffering with low back pain (LBP) when they were walking and running on a treadmill. The results indicate that there was no significant difference in the variance and in the change of variance over time of the exercise between the two groups when the participants were walking. However, when the participants were running, there was a significant difference between the two cohorts. While there was an increase in the variance over the duration of the exercise for both of the groups, the increase in variance of the LBP group was much greater (order of ten times) compared with that of the healthy participants. The difference between the two groups was also very significant when observing the change of variance over time. From these results, it is suggested that variance of SEMG of the muscles of the lower back, recorded when the participants are running, can be used to identify LBP patients.