Identification of Low Back Injury from EMG Signals using a Neural Network Model

We propose a novel neural network model for the identification of low back injury using electromyography (EMG) data. By connecting task condition variables to the second hidden-layer of the neural network, the importance of those variables can be improved. A 4-muscle method and a 10-muscle method are discussed. A higher classification accuracy was achieved by the 10-muscle method since it takes the correlation between muscle activities into account. We also found that identification accuracy decreases when the object weight or the lifting height increases. The obtained results improve our understanding of low back disorders and provide important guidance for future experimental studies.