Case study: Use of surface electromyography in masseter to investigate the muscular effort and movement features during the naturally chewing and swallowing

Chewing and swallowing patterns was large
described as a risk factor for degenerative diseases diagnosis. In
this paper, the electromyography technique was used to collect
the electrical potential from masseter muscle. Aiming to extract
the movement features and muscular effort during chewing
activity of a solid aliment - gummy. Was used an accelerometer -
detecting the hand movement - to facilitate the visual
segmentation of each mastigation and swallow signal. The
maximum voluntary contraction was obtained by the forced
chew in an Parafilm positioned between the molar teeths. The
signal characteristics was obtained through those data analysis
methods: Root Mean Square (RMS), Teager–Kaiser energy
operator (TKEO) and double threshold. The protocol proceed
was made with one health subject, adult, male, instructed to
naturally chew the aliment. The results shows significant
differences on the RMS value (p <0.01) between the first
chewing stages and the final one (25, 50 and 75%). In
conclusion, as shown in results, the electromyography can be
used to detect the chewing pattern and stages - initial (bite) and
final (swallow).