2014 Volume 29 Issue 2 Pages S29-S36
Human beings begin to lose the ability to control muscles with advancing age. A reduction in the function of flexor muscles is observed in the case of the elderly when they experience a fall. The flexor muscles around the hip joint include femoral rectus and abdominal muscles. Recently, there has been an increasing focus on biofeedback training (BFT), which is expected to improve the ability to control muscles and prevent the deterioration of muscular functions due to aging. In this study, we performed surface electromyography (sEMG) of the femoral rectus muscles during the BFT of a dominant leg. This study aimed at developing indices for form in a smoothed sEMG and evaluating the changes in these indices with age. Statistical analysis indicated that it was necessary to include the time constant of the exponential decay curve fit to maximal points during prolonged muscular contraction. A reduction in the ability to control muscles owing to aging can be detected by performing sEMG during BFT by using a time constant. This time constant will be applied to evaluate the effect of BFT on recovery of the ability.
