A Study of the Accuracy of Electromyographic Differential Diagnostics of Patients with Parkinson's Disease and Essential Tremor in Various Postures of the Patient

The accuracy of electromyographic differential diagnostics of essential tremor and Parkinson's disease in various patient postures was studied. To assess the accuracy of differential diagnostics, a mathematical method was developed on the basis of the analysis of wave trains of the electrical activity of antagonist muscles. To compare the accuracy of differential diagnostic methods, we used a computational experiment. Patients with the first stage of Parkinson's disease with a tremor in the left arm (14 subjects) and right arm (14 subjects), as well as patients with essential tremor (14 subjects), were studied. A relaxed posture and posture with arms extended forward were compared. The results of comparing the relaxed posture and the posture with outstretched arms demonstrated that differential diagnostics should be performed in the relaxed posture of the patient regardless of which side of the patient's body tremor is observed. If diagnostics in the relaxed posture is impossible due to the fact that the patient does not have resting tremor, it is advisable to use the posture with outstretched arms.