The Effect of Rhythmic Auditory Cue on the Lower Limb Muscle Activity during Cycling in the Elderly Subjects

Rhythmic auditory cue is one of the accepted techniques for the rehabilitation and improvement of motor control in the healthy elderly and who with movement disorders. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of auditory cue on the EMG activity of the elderly subjects during cycling. 10 healthy elderly males participated in this study. The EMG activity of rectus femoris (RF), biceps femoris (BF) and tibialis anterior (TA) muscles were recorded using an EMG-USB2+ multichannel system (Bioelettronica Italy) (sampling frequency of 1000 Hz) and bipolar surface electrodes. Using OT BioLab software the signals were processed and the RMS of signals was obtained. For the tests, the subjects were asked to pedal with preferred speed with and without rhythmic auditory cue. Each condition was repeated for three times, and each test lasts for one minute. There was 3-minutes rest between repetitions. Data was analyzed using SPSS software (version 24) and repeated measure analysis of variance and paired sample t-tests with significance level of 0.05. The results showed that, the normalized muscle activity in pedaling with auditory cue was significantly higher than that of pedaling without an auditory cue (P=0.05). During pedaling with auditory cue, the normalized EMG activity of right RF and left TA muscles were approximately 1.25 (p=0.03) and 1.22 (p=0.04) significantly greater than un-cued condition, respectively. In conclusion, rhythmic auditory cue increased the EMG activity of the lower extremity muscles among the elderly. So, in designing an appropriate training and rehabilitation program for the lower extremity muscles in the elderly, the use of auditory cue while pedaling as an easy and low-cost training method can be recommended.