Effects of antagonistic and synergistic muscles' co-activation on mechanics of activated spastic semitendinosus in children with cerebral palsy

Abstract

Objectives: Most activities involve co-activation of several muscles and epimuscular myofascial force transmission (EMFT) can affect their mechanics. This can be relevant for spastic muscles of cerebral palsy (CP) patients. Isometric spastic semitendinosus (ST) forces vs. knee angle (ICA-Fsr) data were collected intra-operatively to test the following hypotheses: (i) Inter-antagonistic EMFT elevates FST, (ii) changes the shape of KA-FST characteristics, (iii) reduces the muscle's joint range of force exertion (Range-Far) and (iv) combined inter-antagonistic and synergistic EMFT further changes those effects.