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Design of a Portable Electromyography Device for Back Herniated Patients.

Conference Paper · January 2010

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 DESIGN OF A PORTABLE ELECTROMYOGRAPHY DEVICE
FOR BACK HERNIATED PATIENTS

Halil İbrahim Çakar, Sadık Kara and Onur Toker

Department of Electrical-Electronics Engineering, Fatih University, 34500, Buyukcekmece, Istanbul, Turkey
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Keywords: Surface Electromyography, Back Herniation, Biomedical Instrumentation.

Abstract: Up to 80 percent of people are affected by back herniation or another low-back disease in their life. Some
studies have proven that there is a significant relation between paraspinal muscles and back herniation. In
this study, a portable surface electromyography device was designed for measuring the muscular activity of
paraspinal muscles from back herniated patients. The device’s gain value is adjusted to 1000, it includes a
band-pass filter and a 50 Hz notch filter to eliminate power source interference noise and other electrically
noises. The device designed as an electrically isolated single channel, and it is linked to Matlab software via
the serial port of Personal Computer.

1 INTRODUCTION used in research of paraspinal muscle activities.

(Emley et al., 1992), (De Luca, 1993), (Kent, 1997),
A superior cause of low-back pain is lumbar-disc (Kuriyama and Hito, 2005)
herniation (LDH). LDH pain influences 70%-85% of In this study, our goal is the measurement of the
people during their life and LDH is the most paraspinal muscles’ activities and the determination
common reason which limits the activity in people of the existence of back herniation with using the
younger than 45 years of age. (Hirose et al., 2008) In sEMG bio potentials of these muscles. This portable
the USA, LDH is the second most common reason device offers a non-invasive, quicker, comfortable,
for visiting the physician, one of the most frequent low-cost and alternative system for diagnosis of
reason of entrance to the hospital. Furthermore, the back herniation.
third most frequent reason of surgical interventions.
(Andersson, 1999) Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(MRI) is the commonly used imaging method in 2 GENERAL DESCRIPTIONS OF
diagnosis of LDH. Because, approximately 30% of CIRCUITS
symptomless patients show a disc herniation on
MRI. Moreover, Computer Tomography (CT) and In this section, the main components of the device
myelography methods are rarely used for diagnosis. are described. Basically, whole device composed by
(Skinner, 2003) Electromyography (EMG) is used in five parts. In the first stage, low bio potentials are
LDH diagnosis to determine the neural injury in amplified and then for the safety of the patient
herniated region and to measure the level of injury if isolation circuit is used. In the stages, amplified
exists. (Çevikcan and Kara, 2007) signals filtered and digitized with a high resolution
Electromyography (EMG) is a bio potential analog to digital converter (ADC).
signal which represents the neuromuscular activities Lastly, the digital data is transferred to the
and occurs during the contraction and relaxation personal computer (PC) by the microcontroller
activity of skeletal muscles. These activities of PIC18F452. General block diagram of the device is
muscles are controlled by the nervous system. (Reaz shown in Fig.1.
et al., 2006) Surface electromyography (sEMG) is a Raw sEMG data is collected with bipolar electrodes.
method used for appraisement of muscles’ activities The disposable bipolar electrodes are recommended
noninvasively. sEMG signals should be detected as by the European initiative, Surface
monopolar or bipolar. (Moore and Zouridakis, 2004) Electromyography for Noninvasive Assessment of
Some studies have proven that sEMG should be

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 DESIGN OF A PORTABLE ELECTROMYOGRAPHY DEVICE FOR BACK HERNIATED PATIENTS

Figure 1: The block diagram of the device.

Muscles (SENIAM) who defines general agreements

about the basic criteria about sEMG since 1996.
(Merletti and Parker, 2004) Electrodes are connected
to amplification block by using shielded cables to
degrade the environmental noise effect.

2.1 Amplification and Isolation

Instrumentation amplifier (in-amp) amplifies the
difference of the sensed low amplitude signals by
bipolar electrodes. sEMG signal amplitude range
changes between 100 µV to 5 mV and frequency
range is between 10 Hz to 1000 Hz. For
amplification, Analog Devices’ (AD) low-power,
low-cost and high accuracy in-amp AD620 is used.
AD620 achieves a very high common mode
rejection ratio CMRR (100 dB min when the gain is Figure 2: The circuit diagram of amplification and
isolation block.
10) and its low noise level, low input bias current
and low power dissipation makes it suitable for
biomedical instrumentation applications. This high Using right-leg driver (RDL) circuit is another
accuracy in-amp’s gain setting is adjusted by using way of reducing the noise. Basically, RDL circuit
just a single external resistor and its gain range inverts the common mode voltage which occurs
changes between 1 to 10000. The gain of AD620 during the recording of sEMG signals with respect
should be adjusted by using the equation (1). We to amplifier’s common. Then, the inverted common
chose G as 1000. (AD620 datasheet, 2004) mode voltage is applied to the body by attaching a
second monopolar electrode to the patient’s right
leg. (Winter and Webster, 1983) AD’s low power
G = (49.4k / RG ) + 1 (1)
and high precision operational amplifier OP97 is
used in the right-leg driver circuit.
AC-coupling is required in high-gain front-end Another important issue in biomedical
amplifiers for biopotential measurements. A instrumentation is the isolation of the patient from
differential high-pass filter is designed without any non-biomedical equipments such as computers,
grounded resistor to reduce baseline wander and to which could be connected to EMG device and have
obtain the higher CMRR in front of the high power rates. Maximum accepted leakage
instrumentation amplifier. (Spinelli et al., 2003) The current for biomedical equipments in Europe is 100
cut-off frequency of ac-coupling filter is 10 Hz. µARMS during instrument’s normal working
procedure. (Moore and Zouridakis, 2004) Galvanic
isolation and optoisolation are commonly used types
of isolation. For the isolation of our device, Burr-
Brown’s (BB) monolithic precision lowest cost
isolation amplifier is used. Basically, ISO122
includes a galvanic isolation system and matched
1pF of isolating capacitors. ISO122 uses a novel
duty cycle modulation-demodulation technique. The
signal is transmitted to the other side of isolation

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BIODEVICES 2010 - International Conference on Biomedical Electronics and Devices

barrier by a 500 kHz duty cycle modulation

technique. 0.020 % maximum nonlinearity ratio, 140
dB of isolation mode rejection (IMR) value and
maximum 0.5 µARMS leakage current make ISO122
suitable for our system. (ISO122 datasheet, 1993)
The general block diagram of amplification and
isolation stage should be seen in Fig. 2.

2.2 Filtering
To eliminate the unwanted signals such as, DC
offset generated by the half-cell potential of the
electrodes that DC-coupled in the input stage and Figure 4: The circuit diagram of 50 Hz notch filter.
motion artefacts, a band-pass filter (BPF) should be
after the input stage of the device. (Moore and 2.3 Analog to Digital Conversion and
Zouridakis, 2004) According to the recommended Microcontroller
sEMG amplifier bandwidth, an active high-pass
filter (HPF) having 10 Hz cut-off frequency and an After amplification, isolation and filtering
active low-pass filter (LPF) with a 500 Hz of cut-off procedures, the analog raw sEMG signal should be
frequency are designed. The circuit diagram of BPF digitized with an ADC. BB’s low-power, serial 16-
is in Fig. 3. bit sampling ADC ADS7813 is used for digitizing.
In design of both filters, Linear Technology’s ADS7813 contains the 16-bit capacitor based
(LT) Quad Low Cost Precision Op Amp LTC1053 is successive approximation (SAR) ADC with a
used. HPF and LPF both have 4 poles and the types sample/hold, clock, reference and easy to use serial
of filters are Sallen-Key. The responses of filters are interface. The throughout rate of ADS7813 is
Butterworth. We chose Butterworth because of its minimum 40 kHz. The conversion time lengths
flattest response in the passband. maximum 20μs. Its integral linearity error is
In the second stage of filtering, 50 Hz of notch maximum +3 LSB and differential linearity error is
filter is designed. LT’s Dual Precision Op Amp +3, -2 LSB. ADS7813 includes single channel. But,
LT1013 is used for making notch filter. Fig. 4 shows it is suitable for multichannel applications.
the circuit diagram of notch filter. (ADS7813 datasheet, 2005)

Figure 5: Relation of ADC, microcontroller and PC.

When transferring the 16 bit digital signals to

PC, Microchip’s microcontroller PIC18F452 is used.
PIC18F452 has the master synchronous serial port
(MSSP) module including serial peripheral interface
(SPI) suitable for interfacing ADS7813. PIC18F452
is chosen as master and ADS7813 as a slave.
PIC18F452’s addressable universal synchronous
Figure 3: The circuit diagram of high-pass filter and low- asynchronous receiver transmitter (USART) is
pass filter. another serial I/O module. (PIC18FXX2 datasheet,
2006) UART module is used to send the signals to
PC. Fig. 5 shows the relation of ADC,
microcontroller and PC. PIC18F452 sends the

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 DESIGN OF A PORTABLE ELECTROMYOGRAPHY DEVICE FOR BACK HERNIATED PATIENTS

digitized signal via serial cable. Matlab’s serial port Elektromiyografik Analizi. In Elektrik-Elektronik,
I/O feature lets us to communicate with Bilgisayar, Biyomedikal Mühendisliği XII. Ulusal
microcontroller. The sEMG signals are buffered to Kongresi ve Fuarı. (Turkish)
Matlab during the measurement and then other Reaz, M. B. I., et al. 2006.Techniques of EMG signal
analysis: detection, processing, classification and
signal processing methods are applied. An example applications. In Biological Procedures Online.
of raw unprocessed sample of sEMG signal should Moore, J., Zouridakis, G., 2004. Biomedical Technology
be seen in Fig. 6. This sample is taken from and Devices Handbook, CRC Press LLC.
Thoracolumbar Fascia muscle of a volunteer healthy Emley, M. S., et al. 1992. Electromyography Unlocking
male. In the next stages of this study, we aim to the Secrets of Back Pain. In IEEE Potentials.
evaluate sEMG signals collected with our device De Luca, C. J., 1993. Use of the Surface EMG Signal for
belong to patients with various signal processing Performance Evaluation of Back Muscles. In
techniques. Muscle&Nerve.
Kent, C., 1997. Surface Electromyography in the
Assessment of Changes in Paraspinal Muscle Activity
Associated with Vertebral Subluxation. In Journal of
Vertebral Subluxation Research.
Kuriyama, N., Ito, H., 2005. Electromyographic
Functional Analysis of the Lumbar Spinal Muscles
with Low Back Pain. In Journal of Nippon Medical
School.
Merletti, R., Parker, P., 2004. Electromyography
Physiology, Engineering, and Noninvasive
Applications, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
AD620 Low Cost Low Power Instrumentation Amplifier
Datasheet, 2004, Analog Devices.
Spinelli, M. E., et al. 2003. AC-Coupled Front-End for
Biopotential Measurements. In IEEE Transactions On
Biomedical Engineering Vol.50, No.3.
Winter, B. B., Webster, J.G. 1983. Driven-Right-Leg
Circuit Design. In IEEE Transactions On Biomedical
Figure 6: A sample of raw sEMG signal.
Engineering Vol.BME-30, No.1.
ISO122 Precision Lowest Cost Isolation Amplifier
Datasheet, 1993, Burr-Brown Corporation.
3 CONCLUSIONS ADS7813 Low-Power, Serial 16-Bit Sampling Analog to
Digital Converter Datasheet, 2005, Burr-Brown
Corporation.
In this study, we described a non-invasive, low-cost PIC18FXX2 High-Performance, Enhanced Flash
and portable electromyography device for back Microcontrollers with 10-Bit A/D Datasheet, 2006,
herniated patients. Device includes a single channel Microchip Technology.
and 16-bit resolution ADC. It has serial
communication with PC and has a direct connection
with Matlab software. In future, we aim to add a
Bluetooth® module to make our device wireless and
more portable.

REFERENCES
Hirose, Y., et al. 2008. A Functional Polymorphism in
THBS2 that Affects Alternative Splicing and MMP
Binding Is Associated with Lumbar-Disc Herniation.
In The American Journal of Human Genetics.
Andersson, B.J.G, 1999. Epidemiological features of
chronic low-back pain, Lancet.
Skinner, H., 2003. Current Diagnosis & Treatment in
Orthopedics, Appleton & Lange. 3rd edition.
Çevikcan, B., Kara, S., 2007. Bel Fıtığı Hastalığı Bulunan
Bireylerin Bel ve Karın Kası Fonksiyonlarının

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