Desenvolvimento de protótipo de dispositivo para avaliação de espasticidade

Abstract

Spasticity is a neuromotor dysfunction that affects about 12 million people worldwide. Lance defines this disorder as the increase, depending on the speed, of the tonic stretch reflexes. The currently scale used to measure this motor disorder, although subjective, is the Ashworth scale. Several methods have been proposed, over the years, for the diagnosis and the establishment of parameters that allow the evaluation of the therapeutic efficacy of spasticity. Among them, the concept of Threshold of the Reflex of Tonic Stretch (TSRT), proposed by Levin and Feldman, that requires data to define the speed of movement and the muscular electrical activity of the same member under analysis. Thus, the objective of this work is to develop a device that acquires the necessary parameters for spasticity evaluation, based on the concept of Levin and Feldman. It was then designed a electromyograph and a electrogoniometer, capable of providing the necessary measurements of the method applied. The myoelectric signal to be detected showed deformations due to failures in the projected electronic circuit board. On the other hand, the amplitude of the joint movement that presented intercurrences for small angular values was obtained.