Measuring Surface Electromyography with Textile Electrodes in a Smart Leg Sleeve

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2024-05, Vol.24 (9), p.2763
• Main Authors: Amitrano, Federica, Coccia, Armando, Pagano, Gaetano, Biancardi, Arcangelo, Tombolini, Giuseppe, Marsico, Vito, D'Addio, Giovanni
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Analysis; comfort rating scale; e-textile; Electrodes; Electromyography - instrumentation; Electromyography - methods; EMG; Female; Humans; Innovations; Leg - physiology; Male; Measurement; Muscle, Skeletal - physiology; Sensors; surface electromyography; textile-based electrode; Textiles; Wearable Electronic Devices; wearable sensors
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s24092763

This paper presents the design, development, and validation of a novel e-textile leg sleeve for non-invasive Surface Electromyography (sEMG) monitoring. This wearable device incorporates e-textile sensors for sEMG signal acquisition from the lower limb muscles, specifically the anterior tibialis and lateral gastrocnemius. Validation was conducted by performing a comparative study with eleven healthy volunteers to evaluate the performance of the e-textile sleeve in acquiring sEMG signals compared to traditional Ag/AgCl electrodes. The results demonstrated strong agreement between the e-textile and conventional methods in measuring descriptive metrics of the signals, including area, power, mean, and root mean square. The paired data -test did not reveal any statistically significant differences, and the Bland-Altman analysis indicated negligible bias between the measures recorded using the two methods. In addition, this study evaluated the wearability and comfort of the e-textile sleeve using the Comfort Rating Scale (CRS). Overall, the scores confirmed that the proposed device is highly wearable and comfortable, highlighting its suitability for everyday use in patient care.