Objectives: Based on the analysis of electromyographic (EMG) data muscles are often characterized as normal or affected by a neuromuscular disease process. A clinical decision support system (CDSS) for the electrophysiological characterization of muscles by analyzing motor unit potentials (MUPs) was developed to assist physicians and researchers with the diagnosis, treatment & management of neuromuscular disorders and analyzed against criteria for use in a clinical setting.
Methods: Quantitative MUP data extracted from various muscles from control subjects and patients from a number of clinics was used to compare the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of a number of different clinical decision support methods. The CDSS developed in this work known as AMC-PD has three components: MUP characterization using Pattern Discovery (PD), muscle characterization by taking the average of MUP characterizations and calibrated muscle characterizations.
Results: The results demonstrated that AMC-PD achieved higher accuracy than conventional means and outlier analysis. Duration, thickness and number of turns were the most discriminative MUP features for characterizing the muscles studied in this work.
Conclusions: AMC-PD achieved higher accuracy than conventional means and outlier analysis. Muscle characterization performed using AMC-PD can facilitate the determination of “possible”, “probable”, or “definite” levels of disease whereas the conventional means and outlier methods can only provide a dichotomous “normal” or “abnormal” decision. Therefore, AMC-PD can be directly used to support clinical decisions related to initial diagnosis as well as treatment and management over time. Decisions are based on facts and not impressions giving electromyography a more reliable role in the diagnosis, management, and treatment of neuromuscular disorders. AMC-PD based calibrated muscle characterization can help make electrophysiological examinations more accurate and objective.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OWTU.10012/4214 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Pino, Lou Joseph |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
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