Electrocardiogram removal from electromyogram of the muscles

• Published in: The 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Vol. 1; pp. 243 - 246
• Main Authors: Ragupathy, S.C., Kumar, D.K., Polus, B., Kamei, K.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2004
• Subjects: Back; Differential amplifiers; ECG artefact; Electrocardiography; Electromyography; Filtering; Filters; Frequency; Independent component analysis; Lumbar Electromyogram; Muscles; Pain; RMS
• ISBN: 0780384393; 9780780384392
• DOI: 10.1109/IEMBS.2004.1403137

Surface electromyogram (SEMG) of the lumbar back muscles is being used for determining posture disorders for people suffering from low back pain. But SEMG of the back has a strong electrocardiogram (ECG) artefact. Research was conducted to determine the difference in the SEMG before and after the removal of ECG artefact from the SEMG recording using gating, subtraction and multi-step independent component analysis (MICA). The paper reports results of experiments conducted on eleven subjects over two days. The results show that removal of ECG artefact from the raw signal can substantially alter the RMS of the signal demonstrating the need for careful filtering of the signal for analysis. The paper also reports of the success of MICA for removing the ECG artefact.