BeBoControl

Measuring the spatio-temporal distribution of muscle activity to determine properties and control patterns of pelvic floor muscles.

Factsheet

Schools involved School of Health Professions
School of Engineering and Computer Science
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
Head of project Dr. Patric Eichelberger
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.