Bipolar versus high-density surface electromyography for evaluating risk in fatiguing frequency-dependent lifting activities

Tiwana Varrecchia; Alberto Ranavolo; Silvia Conforto; Alessandro Marco De Nunzio; Michail Arvanitidis; Francesco Draicchio; Deborah Falla

doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2021.103456

Bipolar versus high-density surface electromyography for evaluating risk in fatiguing frequency-dependent lifting activities

Appl Ergon. 2021 Sep:95:103456. doi: 10.1016/j.apergo.2021.103456. Epub 2021 May 11.

Authors

Tiwana Varrecchia¹, Alberto Ranavolo², Silvia Conforto³, Alessandro Marco De Nunzio⁴, Michail Arvanitidis⁵, Francesco Draicchio⁶, Deborah Falla⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Epidemiology and Hygiene, INAIL, Monte Porzio Catone, 00040, Rome, Italy; Department of Engineering, Roma Tre University, Via Vito Volterra 62, Roma, Lazio, Italy. Electronic address: t.varrecchia@inail.it.
² Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Epidemiology and Hygiene, INAIL, Monte Porzio Catone, 00040, Rome, Italy. Electronic address: a.ranavolo@inail.it.
³ Department of Engineering, Roma Tre University, Via Vito Volterra 62, Roma, Lazio, Italy. Electronic address: silvia.conforto@uniroma3.it.
⁴ LUNEX International University of Health, Exercise and Sports, 50, Avenue du Parc des Sports, Differdange, 4671, Luxembourg; Luxembourg Health & Sport Sciences Research Institute A.s.b.l., 50, Avenue du Parc des Sports, Differdange, 4671, Luxembourg. Electronic address: alessandro.denunzio@lunex-university.net.
⁵ Centre of Precision Rehabilitation for Spinal Pain (CPR Spine), School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, B152TT, United Kingdom. Electronic address: MXA1016@student.bham.ac.uk.
⁶ Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Epidemiology and Hygiene, INAIL, Monte Porzio Catone, 00040, Rome, Italy. Electronic address: f.draicchio@inail.it.
⁷ Centre of Precision Rehabilitation for Spinal Pain (CPR Spine), School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, B152TT, United Kingdom. Electronic address: D.Falla@bham.ac.uk.

PMID: 33984582
DOI: 10.1016/j.apergo.2021.103456

Abstract

Workers often develop low back pain due to manually lifting heavy loads. Instrumental-based assessment tools are used to quantitatively assess the biomechanical risk in lifting activities. This study aims to verify the hypothesis that high-density surface electromyography (HDsEMG) allows an optimized discrimination of risk levels associated with different fatiguing lifting conditions compared to traditional bipolar sEMG. 15 participants performed three lifting tasks with a progressively increasing lifting index (LI) each lasting 15 min. Erector spinae (ES) activity was recorded using both bipolar and HDsEMG systems. The amplitude of both bipolar and HDsEMG can significantly discriminate each pair of LI. HDsEMG data could discriminate across the different LIs starting from the fourth minute of the task while bipolar sEMG could only do so towards the end. The higher discriminative power of HDsEMG data across the lifting tasks makes such methodology a valuable tool to be used to monitor fatigue while lifting and could extend the possibilities offered by currently available instrumental-based tools.

Keywords: Biomechanical risk; Bipolar and high-Density (HD) sEMG; Fatiguing frequency-dependent lifting activities.

MeSH terms

Electromyography / methods*
Humans
Lifting*
Muscle Fatigue*
Muscle, Skeletal