Quantitative Muscle Fatigue Assessment in Neuromuscular Disorders: A Pilot Study on Duchenne Pediatric Subjects

The assessment of muscle fatigue could provide crucial information to monitor the progression of a neuromuscular disease, as well as evidences about the efficacy of an eventual therapeutic approach. The aim of the present work is to test the feasibility of a novel method based on a robotic wrist device and sEMG, on neuromuscular pediatric subjects for a future implementation in clinical practice. The proposed paradigm has been previously validated on a population of healthy subjects. Five children (age 8.8 ± 1.3 yo) with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) performed the test and their right flexor and extensor carpi radialis were recorded to obtain an objective indicator of muscle fatigue.