Assessment by Surface Electromyography in Cerebral Palsy Footballers

Adapted sport is constantly evolving thanks to the technological and scientific advances in the field of sports that are being developed in our era. Until a few years ago, the study of training, loads, volumes and work intensities were the focus of attention, but nowadays, expanding towards recovery of the individual and consequently to an improvement of the assessments and treatments from the point of view of the alteration of the movement. Impaired motor control is a consequence of most central nervous system (CNS) movement disorders, such as cerebral palsy. A common physical examination includes assessment of passive muscle elongation endurance, isometric and isotonic testing. This test is used to judge the degree and nature of muscle hyperendurance, to determine etiology at the muscle tissue and/or motor control level, and to infer consequences for overall motor performance in functional tasks. Although this physical examination is in widespread clinical use and provides clinically essential information, it is still a subjective assessment and depends on several factors such as intra- and inter-examiner variability.this variability and subjectivity calls for a consensus on the interpretation and measurement of muscle neurophysiological responses in patients with neurological diseases.Generally, the assessment instruments used for the analysis of hypertonia in adapted sports are based on standardized tests and trials. Specifically, in CP (Cerebral Palsy)-Football, hypertonia is assessed by the degrees of spasticity of the modified Ashworth Scale. There is a need for instrumental assessment to validate subjectivity and thus facilitate the applicability, objectivity, characterization and monitoring of the pathology, such as surface electromyography (EMS).

The tests will be performed in a control group of healthy subjects and an experimental group with subjects belonging to the Spanish National Football Team of cerebral palsy and acquired brain damage. After collecting the records, the behavioral patterns in both groups will be evaluated, establishing possible differences between them for the clinimetric indicators analyzed related to muscle activity, thus allowing a characterization of the sample.

Subsequently, by means of the post-exertion assessment of the experimental group, we will analyze the influence of muscle fatigue after an international soccer match.

Therefore, the development of the project aims to provide clinical health professionals and professionals in sports physical activity with evaluative tools (EMG) sensitive to clinical changes that allow characterizing, classifying and observing the evolution of their athletes through a simple, fast and agile characterization of indicators based on surface electromyography for patients with cerebral palsy and acquired brain damage.