Percy Nohama

Pode a termografia auxiliar no diagnóstico de lesões musculares em atletas de futebol

INTRODUCAO: Considerando que as lesoes musculares desencadeiam processos inflamatorios e que a inflamacao gera calor em decorrencia do aumento do metabolismo local, entao, o nivel inflamatorio pode ser avaliado por meio do gradiente de temperatura. OBJETIVO: Verificar a viabilidade da aplicacao da termografia no diagnostico de lesoes causadas pelo treinamento fisico. METODOS: O estudo foi realizado com atletas adolescentes do Parana Clube, Curitiba, PR, Brasil, que foram divididos em dois grupos, denominados controle e experimental. O grupo controle participou de uma sessao de treinamento de baixa intensidade e o grupo experimental de alta intensidade. Primeiramente, foi capturada uma imagem termografica do quadriceps femoral de cada atleta antes do inicio da sessao de treinamento. Apos a sessao de treinamento, coletou-se uma amostra de sangue para verificar o nivel serico de lactato de cada atleta. Posteriormente, 24h apos o treinamento, efetuou-se outra coleta de sangue para verificar o nivel serico de CK de cada atleta. Outra imagem termografica individual do quadriceps femoral tambem foi adquirida nessa etapa. RESULTADOS: A correlacao entre os indices de lactato e CK foi positiva e estatisticamente significativa, com valor rho = 0,661 (p = 0,038). Nao houve correlacao estatisticamente significativa entre os valores de CK 24h pos-treino e na variacao de temperatura (24h pos-treino - pre-treino) nos musculos avaliados para o grupo controle. Houve diferenca de temperatura (24h pos-treino - pre-treino) estatisticamente significativa (p < 0,05) para os tres musculos estudados apenas no grupo experimental. CONCLUSAO: Os resultados do presente estudo sugerem a possibilidade da utilizacao de imagens termograficas para, em conjunto com a creatina-quinase, determinar a intensidade e a localizacao de lesoes musculares pos-treino, uma vez que o citado marcador bioquimico nao consegue determinar a localizacao anatomica da lesao muscular.

Cognate mapping: a heuristic strategy for the semi-supervised acquisition of a Spanish lexicon from a Portuguese seed lexicon

We deal with the automated acquisition of a Spanish medical subword lexicon from an already existing Portuguese seed lexicon. Using two non-parallel monolingual corpora we determined Spanish lexeme candidates from Portuguese seed lexicon entries by heuristic cognate mapping. We validated the emergent lexical translation hypotheses by determining the similarity of fixed-window context vectors on the basis of Portuguese and Spanish text corpora.

A termografia no apoio ao diagnostico de lesao muscular no esporte

INTRODUCTION: Rugby is one of the sports that cause more injuries. Muscle injury presents a localized thermal variation, causing an increase in local temperature which supposedly can be assessed by measuring the temperature. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to analyze the correlation between the changes in skin temperature at various body sites and the variation of CK, at two-cycle activities of professional rugby athletes, to thereby evaluate the use of thermography as a method to support the diagnosis of muscle injuries. METHODS: The study included 21 male rugby athletes aged between 19 and 31 years from a professional club nationwide. Blood samples were taken to assess serum CK and the acquisition of infrared image of athletes (48 h post-workout and 48 h post-game) for evaluation of skin temperature over the muscles of interest. Images in anterior and posterior view of the trunk and thighs were performed. The analysis of the thermograms was conducted systematically. RESULTS: There was no correlation between the change in CK and the average temperature variation of selected muscles.However, in the group of athletes who experienced an elevation of CK greater than 50% between the first and second assessment, the left pectoralis and the left semitendinosus muscles showed significant differences with p-values of 0.037 and 0.045, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: It can be concluded that thermography can be used as a method of support for diagnosis of muscle injury in athletes.ABSTRACT Introduction: Rugby is one of the sports that cause more injuries. Muscle injury presents a localized thermal variation, causing an increase in local temperature which supposedly can be assessed by measuring the tempera-ture. Objective: The aim of this study was to analyze the correlation between the changes in skin temperature at various body sites and the variation of CK, at two-cycle activities of professional rugby athletes, to thereby evaluate the use of thermography as a method to support the diagnosis of muscle injuries. Methods: The study included 21 male rugby athletes aged between 19 and 31 years from a professional club nationwide. Blood samples were taken to assess serum CK and the acquisition of infrared image of athletes (48 h post-workout and 48 h post-game) for evaluation of skin temperature over the muscles of interest. Images in anterior and posterior view of the trunk and thighs were performed. The analysis of the thermograms was conducted systematically. Results: There was no correlation between the change in CK and the average temperature variation of selected muscles.However, in the group of athletes who experienced an elevation of CK greater than 50% between the first and second assessment, the left pectoralis and the left semitendinosus muscles showed significant differences with p-values of 0.037 and 0.045, respectively. Conclusions: It can be concluded that thermography can be used as a method of support for diagnosis of muscle injury in athletes.Keywords: Rugby. Thermography. Creatine kinase. Diagnosis..

Avaliação da fadiga muscular pela mecanomiografia durante a aplicação de um protocolo de EENM

BACKGROUND: Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) is a widely used technique for rehabilitation in physical therapy, however it causes muscle fatigue more rapidly than does voluntary contraction. In clinical practice, it becomes necessary to monitor muscle fatigue during NMES protocols to adjust the parameters of electrical current stimulation and, thus, increase stimulation time. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to use mechanomyography (MMG) as a means of evaluating peripheral muscle fatigue during the execution of an NMES protocol. METHODS: An MMG signal acquisition system and an experimental protocol were developed. During in vivo tests, 10 participants performed maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) for knee extension. A maximization phase was conducted with dynamic contractions generated by NMES at 10% of MVC (100 Hz, 400 µs) on the quadriceps muscle, and the main NMES protocol occurred at 30% of MVC (50 Hz, 400 µs). Simultaneously, MMGRMS (amplitude) and MMGMPF (frequency) signals of the rectus femoris and the knee extension torque were acquired. RESULTS: The tendency line of the MMGRMS was descendant, indicating that MMGRMS correlates with torque amplitude. However, MMGMPF did not show a significant correlation with torque for the present NMES protocol. CONCLUSIONS: MMG is a technique that can be simultaneously applied to NMES because there is no electrical interference and it can be used during functional movements in the NMES-generated muscle contraction. Article registered in the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) under the number ACTRN12609000866202.

A computer tool for the fusion and visualization of thermal and magnetic resonance images.

The measurement of temperature variation along the surface of the body, provided by digital infrared thermal imaging (DITI), is becoming a valuable auxiliary tool for the early detection of many diseases in medicine. However, DITI is essentially a 2-D technique and its image does not provide useful anatomical information associated with it. However, multimodal image registration and fusion may overcome this difficulty and provide additional information for diagnosis purposes. In this paper, a new method of registering and merging 2-D DITI and 3-D MRI is presented. Registration of the images acquired from the two modalities is necessary as they are acquired with different image systems. Firstly, the body volume of interest is scanned by a MRI system and a set of 2-D DITI of it, at orthogonal angles, is acquired. Next, it is necessary to register these two different sets of images. This is done by creating 2-D MRI projections from the reconstructed 3-D MRI volume and registering it with the DITI. Once registered, the DITI is then projected over the 3-D MRI. The program developed to assess the proposed method to combine MRI and DITI resulted in a new tool for fusing two different image modalities, and it can help medical doctors.

Subword-based Semantic Retrieval of Clinical and Bibliographic Documents

OBJECTIVES The increasing amount of electronically available documents in bibliographic databases and the clinical documentation requires user-friendly techniques for content retrieval. METHODS A domain-specific approach on semantic text indexing for document retrieval is presented. It is based on a subword thesaurus and maps the content of texts in different European languages to a common interlingual representation, which supports the search across multilingual document collections. RESULTS Three use cases are presented where the semantic retrieval method has been implemented: a bibliographic database, a department EHR system, and a consumer-oriented Web portal. CONCLUSIONS It could be shown that a semantic indexing and retrieval approach, the performance of which had already been empirically assessed in prior studies, proved useful in different prototypical and routine scenarios and was well accepted by several user groups.

Iontophoresis: principles and applications

Introduction Iontophoresis is a noninvasive technique used to increase transdermal penetration of substances through the skin layer (epidermis, dermis and hypodermis) in a controlled manner. Technological advance in recent decades have provided reduced cost of equipment needed for implementation, which allowed for the expansion of this technique. Objective The aim of this paper is to present the state of the art on iontophoresis, ranging from the atomic characteristics of the ion formation to the current applications of the technique. Methods Were researched papers from databases: IOP publishing, ScienceDirect, Pubmed, Springer, IEEE Xplore, Google Scholar and books with keywords iontophoresis, ions, topical applications between 1967 and 2010. Results Were selected (number of papers and database) 1 IOP Publishing, 1 from ScienceDirect, Central, 1 from Springer, 2 from PubMed, 11 from IEEE Xplore, 35 from Google Scholar, and 15 books, totaling 66 references and websites with nationally marketed electrotherapy products. Conclusion Iontophoresis is suitable for applications such as acetic acid (calcific tendinitis and myositis ossificans), calcium chloride and magnesium sulfate (control of musculoskeletal spasms), dexamethasone (inflammation), lidocaine (inflammation of soft tissues), zinc oxide (rheumatoid arthritis). It is also used in cosmetic applications with devices attached to the skin and for eye treatment aimed at specific tissues of the eye, providing a treatment option for various eye diseases, reducing the complications secondary to traditional methods of treatment. The advantages are the significant increase in the release and control of therapeutic agents, including drugs with high molecular weight. The disadvantages of iontophoresis are the complexity of the drug release system and prolonged exposure of the skin to an electrical current.

A new approach to assess the spasticity in hamstrings muscles using mechanomyography antagonist muscular group

Several pathologies can cause muscle spasticity. Modified Ashworth scale (MAS) can rank spasticity, however its results depend on the physician subjective evaluation. This study aims to show a new approach to spasticity assessment by means of MMG analysis of hamstrings antagonist muscle group (quadriceps muscle). Four subjects participated in the study, divided into two groups regarding MAS (MAS0 and MAS1). MMG sensors were positioned over the muscle belly of rectus femoris (RF), vastus lateralis (VL) and vastus medialis (VM) muscles. The range of movement was acquired with an electrogoniometer placed laterally to the knee. The system was based on a LabVIEW acquisition program and the MMG sensors were built with triaxial accelerometers. The subjects were submitted to stretching reflexes and the integral of the MMG (MMGINT) signal was calculated to analysis. The results showed that the MMGINT was greater to MAS1 than to MAS0 [muscle RF (p= 0.004), VL (p= 0.001) and VM (p= 0.007)]. The results showed that MMG was viable to detect a muscular tonus increase in antagonist muscular group (quadriceps femoris) of spinal cord injured volunteers.

Investigation of muscle behavior during different functional electrical stimulation profiles using Mechanomyography

Mechanomyography (MMG) is a technique for measuring muscle oscillations and fatigue. Functional electrical stimulation (FES) has been applied to control movements mainly in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). The goal of this study is the application of the MMG signal as a tool to investigate muscle response during FES. Ten healthy individuals (HI) and three SCI were submitted to four FES profiles in the rectus femoris (RF) and vastus lateralis (VL) muscles. Four FES profiles were applied in different days. The FES profile set to 1 kHz pulse frequency, 200 us active pulse duration and burst frequency of 50 Hz presented the lowest MMG root mean square and spectral median frequency values, suggesting less muscle modification. The MMG signal was different between HI and SCI but there was no difference between the RF and VL muscles.

Optimal FES parameters based on mechanomyographic efficiency index

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) can artificially elicit movements in spinal cord injured (SCI) subjects. FES control strategies involve monitoring muscle features and setting FES profiles so as to postpone the installation of muscle fatigue or nerve cell adaptation. Mechanomyography (MMG) sensors register the lateral oscillations of contracting muscles. This paper presents an MMG efficiency index (EI) that may indicate most efficient FES electrical parameters to control functional movements. Ten healthy and three SCI volunteers participated in the study. Four FES profiles with two FES sessions were applied with in-between 15min rest interval. MMG RMS and median frequency were inserted into the EI equation. EI increased along the test. FES profile set to 1kHz pulse frequency, 200εs active pulse duration and burst frequency of 50Hz was the most efficient.