MULTI-MUP EMG ANALYSIS - A 2-YEAR EXPERIENCE IN DAILY, CLINICAL-WORK

A new quantitative motor unit potential (MUP) analysis; method, called multi-MUP analysis, is described. Multi-MUP analysis is a type of dec omposition analysis of the EMG signal. At each site 6 different MUPs m ay be recorded during an epoch of 4.8 sec. Calculation time is about 3 sec. A study of 20-30 MUPs. including editing takes 4-8 min. Compared to many earlier MUP analysis methods it is faster and more user frien dly, therefore it can be used in daily routine EMG analysis. The accur acy and reliability of the method are good. The differences from metho ds based on manual analysis, spike triggered averaging, template match ing and decomposition are discussed. The main advantages of multi-MUP analysis are: (1) quick acquisition of many MUPs; (2) simultaneous col lection of several MUPs at one recording site; (3) possibility to anal yze not only low threshold MUPs; (4) less bias in the selection of MUP s; and (5) the reproducibility of the results that allow the same refe rence values to be used in different laboratories. So far we have succ essfully used this method for 2 years on more than 2000 patients.