ELECTROMYOGRAPHIC ACTIVITY OF VARIOUS MUSCLES DURING SIT-TO-STAND IN PATIENTS WITH STROKE: A META-ANALYSIS

Aims: To provide a comprehensive information about analysis of activation of various muscles during Sit-to-Stand in patients with stroke. To determine if there exists any common pattern of muscle activation. To give direction to future studies regarding the muscles to be investigated during Sit-to-Stand. Methods: literature search was performed with help of the most commonly used database i.e. PubMed to select the studies related to electromyographic activities of various lower extremity, trunk and upper extremity muscles during Sit-to-Stand activity, published till 2016. The Inclusion criteria for the study were Prospective or retrospective cohort studies, studies that included only participants with stroke leading to hemiparesis and/or along with healthy participants as control group and studies that measured the EMG activity in either trunk muscles and/or limb muscles during sit to stand. The exclusion criteria were if their population of interest also included patients with other neurological conditions and studies in any language other than English. Two independent investigators assessed the studies based on inclusion and exclusion criteria.  Keywords used during the search were Electromyography, Stroke, Sit-to-Stand. The studies were thoroughly evaluated with respect to the Sit-to-Stand procedure and variety of muscles that were investigated through EMG analysis. Results: With the help of given keywords, abstracts/articles of 21 studies were retrieved from the database. After initial screening of the abstracts 12 studies were selected for in depth analysis. Various lower extremity muscles including Tibialis Anterior, Soleus, Quadriceps, Vastusmedialis, Gluteus Maximus were investigated in the studies. In 2 studies, Trunk muscles were investigated whereas in one study Triceps muscle activity was analyzed during Sit-to Stand activity in patients with stroke. Conclusion: From this study it can be concluded that the activity of Tibialis Anterior muscle was investigated more frequently by various researchers followed by the activity of Soleus and Quadriceps muscle.