Patent ID: 8078273

Claim:
A method for detecting and classifying neuromuscular late wave activity so as to assess neuromuscular function in a patient, the method comprising: (i) electrically stimulating a nerve; (ii) measuring the electrical responses of the muscle innervated by the stimulated nerve, and recording the responses as an ensemble of traces; (iii) pre-processing, using a computer, an ensemble of traces so as to attenuate at least one of noise, power-line frequency interference (PFI) and baseline disturbances; (iv) identifying, using the computer, time segments of late wave activity in the ensemble of traces, wherein identifying time segments of late wave activity in the ensemble of traces comprises calculating a differential feature component and a mean feature component at every time point along the ensemble of traces and comparing the differential feature component and the mean feature component against thresholds so as to identify time segments of late wave activity in the ensemble of traces; (v) classifying, using the computer, the time segments of late wave activity into F-wave, A-wave and Repeater wave segments by exploiting the variable morphology of F-waves across the traces in the ensemble of traces and the fixed morphology of A-waves and Repeater waves across the traces in the ensemble of traces; (vi) searching, using the computer, the traces in the vicinity of the F-wave trace segments on a trace-by-trace basis so as to identify the F-wave onset latency; and (vii) using the identified F-wave onset latency to assess neuromuscular function in the patient.