Properties of the surface electromyogram following traumatic spinal cord injury: a scoping review.

This is a scoping review of existing studies, not a trial or meta-analysis, so it maps what has been measured rather than proving that surface EMG changes patient care. The review excluded studies of treatments, stimulation, pharmacotherapy, and rehabilitation interventions, so it does not address how surface EMG behaves during therapy. It excluded respiratory, sphincter, pelvic floor, smooth muscle, and intramuscular EMG studies. Those muscles and methods are therefore outside its scope. Most evidence came from amplitude-based analyses, with limited reporting of electrode placement, reliability, controls, and participant sex. The included studies were heterogeneous in injury level, time post-injury, muscles assessed, and signal processing, so results cannot be pooled into a single clinical rule. High-density surface EMG and motor unit decomposition were underrepresented because many studies had too few spinal cord injury participants or used able-bodied samples. The paper reports slightly different study counts in different places, so the exact number of included studies is unclear.

The supplied publication types list non-U.S. government research support; no author conflicts-of-interest statement is included in the text.

Do not conclude that surface EMG is a validated clinical outcome measure for spinal cord injury rehabilitation. The review excluded intervention studies and found that most included studies used only amplitude measures with incomplete methodological reporting.