Ardestani, Marzieh M.Malloy, PhilipNam, DenisRosenberg, Aaron G.Wimmer, Markus A.2017-11-162017-11-162017-12Ardestani, M. M., Malloy, P., Nam, D., Rosenberg, A. G., & Wimmer, M. A. (2017). TKA Patients with unsatisfying Knee Function Show Changes in Neuromotor Synergy Pattern but not Joint Biomechanics. Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 37, pp 90-100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jelekin.2017.09.006https://hdl.handle.net/1805/14574Nearly 20% of patients who have undergone total knee arthroplasty (TKA) report persistent poor knee function. This study explores the idea that, despite similar knee joint biomechanics, the neuro-motor synergies may be different between high-functional and low-functional TKA patients. We hypothesized that (1) high-functional TKA recruit a more complex neuro-motor synergy pattern compared to low-functional TKA and (2) high-functional TKA patients demonstrate more stride-to-stride variability (flexibility) in their synergies. Gait and electromyography (EMG) data were collected during level walking for three groups of participants: (i) high-functional TKA patients (n = 13); (ii) low-functional TKA patients (n = 13) and (iii) non-operative controls (n = 18). Synergies were extracted from EMG data using non-negative matrix factorization. Analysis of variance and Spearman correlation analyses were used to investigate between-group differences in gait and neuro-motor synergies. Results showed that synergy patterns were different among the three groups. Control subjects used 5–6 independent neural commands to execute a gait cycle. High functional TKA patients used 4–5 independent neural commands while low-functional TKA patients relied on only 2–3 independent neural commands to execute a gait cycle. Furthermore, stride-to-stride variability of muscles’ response to the neural commands was reduced up to 15% in low-functional TKAs compared to the other two groups.enPublisher Policytotal knee arthroplastyelectromyographyneuro-motor synergyArticle