2014 IEEE Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, 8 - 10 December 2014, Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia
Study of Muscle Signal Variability Based on Wrist and Thumb
Movements During Handwriting Activity
Nurul A. Ishak, Puspa I. Khalid-IEEE Member, Nasrul H. Mahmood- IEEE Member, and Mokhtar
Harun
Abstract— Script is produced through the combined
operation of finger, wrist, and arm movements. The shape of
each letter is produced by the fine movement of the fingers
while movement at the wrist and forearm produce the
horizontal movement across the page. Various muscles are
involved in these movements. Other than muscles to abduct,
adduct, flex, and extend the fingers, Flexor Carpi Ulnaris
(FCU) and Flexor Carpi Radialis (FCR) have roles in wrist
movement and Abductor Pollicis Brevis (APB) functions as an
abductor of the thumb. The purpose of this study is to probe
the importance and role of these three muscles in handwriting
activity by studying the muscles’ signal variability. Fifteen
college students were selected as the subjects of this study. The
subjects were required to perform writing task in two different
forms: uppercase letters and lowercase letters. During writing,
the muscles’ activities due to wrist and thumb movement were
recorded. The Root Mean Square (RMS) values were extracted
and the variability of muscle activity during writing based on
letter types were analysed. It has been found that the APB
muscle showed higher variability than FCU and FCR muscles.
This leads to the inference that the APB muscle was actively
involved in dynamic process of handwriting whereas the FCR
and FCU muscles were just act as the stabilizer. However, the
differences in signal variability among the three muscles were
not significant. This indicates that even though both wrist and
thumb movements have different functions in handwriting
activity, they are equally important. No significant difference
in muscle activity between the two writing tasks was observed.
This study concludes that the APB, FCR and FCU muscles can
be considered when studying muscle performance due to
handwriting activity. For that purpose, any letter case can be
used in the writing task.
I. INTRODUCTION
Handwriting is a basic skill for human that requires a
complex biomechanical movement. Previous researchers
have highlighted the importance of the hand-eye
coordination, flexibility of wrist movement and hand grip to
the handwriting process [1], [2].
Resrach supported by the Ministry of Education (MOE) Malaysia and
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
N. A. Ishak is with the Faculty of Bioscience and Medical Engineering,
University Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Johor, Malaysia
(phone:0177087649; E-mail: k.a_in89@yahoo.com.my)
P. I. Khalid is with Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University
Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Johor, Malaysia (E-mail:
puspa@fke.utm.my)
N. H. Mahmood is with the Faculty of Bioscience and Medical
Engineering, University Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Johor,
Malaysia (E-mail: nasrul@fke.utm.my)
M. Harun is with Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University
Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Johor, Malaysia. (E-mail:
mokhtar@fke.utm.my)
978-1-4799-4084-4/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
Physiologically, finger, wrist and arm need to work
synchronously to produce a smooth movement during
handwriting activity [3], [4]. The ability to grip and move a
writing utensil while stabilising the movement during
writing allows a writer to produce a legible handwriting.
Poon [5] and Kushki [6] have highlighted that failure to
produce an acceptable movement affects the quality and
legibility of handwriting. This indicates that pencil grip and
wrist movement play important role in handwriting process.
Pencil grip describes the way a person holds writing
utensil and it is essential for good handwriting. For efficient
pencil grasp, fingers play a major role either for supplying
the necessary force or making a movement during writing.
One of the most common and best pencil grip among normal
writers is the Dynamic Tripod grasp as shown in Fig. 1 [7].
Although Dynamic Tripod grasp involves three working
fingers (thumb, index and middle fingers), the thumb and
index finger are the master fingers which are used to hold
the utensil and lead the movement [3], [8]. The middle
finger is just the slave finger that support and follow the
movement led by the master fingers. In general, the flexors
and other muscles (opponens and abductor brevis muscle) in
the thenar muscle group that make grasping possible.
However, the muscles that make the bending of the index
finger possible are located at the forearm.
Wrist is responsible in producing vertical and horizontal
movement during writing [9]. The wrist anatomy is
composed of a group of distal tendon, but its performance
can be assessed through the muscles located at the forearm.
De Bruin [10] has stated that the muscles at the forearm can
be used to explain the changes happening at the wrist. This
is because the flexion of the wrist during writing involves
the anterior compartment at forearm area [4]. As shown in
Fig. 2, the muscles contained in the anterior compartment
are known as Pronator Teres, Flexor Carpi Radialis (FCR),
Palmaris Longus (PL), Flexor Carpi Ulnaris (FCU) and
Pronator Teres, which are used to flex the wrist and adduct
the hand [11]. Several researchers have used FCU and FCR
muscles as their reference when studying the flexion of the
wrist [10], [12]. This indicates that the activity of the
forearm muscle can be used to reflect the activity occurring
not only at the fingers but also at the wrist.
The activation of muscles for thumb and wrist movement
is reflected in the muscle signal. According to Pincivero
[13], the changes in physiology can affect the magnitude of
torque, variability and steadiness of the output. Thus, one
way to study the muscle activity is through the variability of
its amplitude [14]. Root Mean Square (RMS) is one
parameter that can be used to study the amplitude of the
muscle signal [15]. The variability in muscle activity can be
817
 2014 IEEE Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, 8 - 10 December 2014, Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia
Figure 1: Dynamic Tripod Graspp
Figure 2: Anterior Compartment of Forearm Muscle [4].
determined by studying the Coefficient of VVariation (CV) of
the signal’s amplitude. Naider-Steinhart and Katz-Leurer
[14] have shown in their study that the CV vvalue can be used
to reflect muscle activity; higher CV vvalue indicates a
dynamic process while lower CV value shows stabilised
activity.
As the Coefficient of Variation (CV) of amplitude can be
used to study the functional of muscle acctivities, it is the
purpose of this study to use the parameeter to probe the
importance and role of thumb and forearm m muscles during
handwriting activity.
II. METHOD
A. Participant
Fifteen female students from Univversiti Teknologi
Malaysia (UTM) had participated in this study.
Demographic information of the participaants is shown in
Table 1. Each participant was considerred as proficient
writer and her motor skills during handwritting activity were
assumed to be fully developed.
Table 1: Demographics of the Particippants
Field of study Quantity Age (years)
Medical Engineering 4 24.0 ± 0.82
Electrical Engineering 11 24.3 ± 1.00
818
B. Muscle Selection
Three muscles were selected for this study: FCR, FCU,
and Abductor Pollicis Brevis (APB)). FCR and FCU muscles
were chosen because they are musclles of the human forearm
that acts to flex the wrist and (radiall) abduct the hand. Since
these muscles are located in the su uperficial layer which is
nearest to the human skin, the signal s produced by the
muscles can be easily captured by the surface EMG. APB
muscle which is one of the thenar group muscles [14] was
selected because its effect to the electrode movements is
small regardless of the subject’s penncil grasp.
C. Instrument
Surface EMG was used instead of needle EMG because
it is non-invasive and more suitable to be used on the subject
during handwriting activities. Dissposable electrodes were
attached to the skin where the FCR R, FCU and APB muscles
were located. All EMG muscle sign nals were recorded at the
same time using sampling frequency y of 4 kHz [16]. To have
a clean muscle signal, band-pass fillter was used to filter the
noise signals. Although the bandwid dth of 30-300 Hz and 20-
500 Hz were used by Danion [17 7] and Thongpanja [18]
respectively, this research used band-pass filter with
bandwidth of 30-500 Hz. The cut-off frequency of 30 Hz
was used to reduce the ECG interfeerence in EMG recording
[19], while 500 Hz was selected to avoid
a anti-aliasing within
sampling [20].
D. Data Acquisition
The EMG signal was recorded using
u Neuro Prax System.
To have good skin impedance, the subject’s skin was
cleaned with alcohol before placin ng the electrodes onto it.
Since the recording system has unipolar amplifier, only three
electrodes (one for each studied muscle) were applied on the
subject’s hand for data acquisition. The amount of electrical
activity in the analysed muscle was shown by the amplitude
of the EMG signal in microvolts. The
T amplitude reflects the
number and size of action potentiaals in the muscle over a
given period.
All subjects were required to write
w "The Quick Brown
Fox Jumps over the Lazy Dog" in two conditions: all
uppercase and all lowercase letters. The muscles’ activities
were recorded while the subject wasw writing the sentence.
For each condition, each subject was asked to write the
given sentence three times. All th he captured signals were
saved in a computer for an offline an
nalysis.
E. Signal Processing
The acquired data were processeed in laptop using Matlab
software. First, the signal was classified as APB, FCR, and
FCU muscle signals. Then centtre of each signal was
extracted so that the signal duration among subjects could be
standardized. The duration for each h extracted signal was 30
seconds as shown in Fig. 3. Fifty (50) Hz band-stop filter
was applied to remove the line no oise before applying the
band pass filter (with cutoff freq quencies of 30 Hz and
500Hz) to remove the unwanted sign nal.
 2014 IEEE Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, 8 - 10 December 2014, Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia
Figure 3: The extracted 30 second signal (red) for further analysis.
The filtered signal was then rectified and enveloped.
Root Mean Square (RMS) value was extracted for each five
second muscle data. For 30 second signal from each subject,
six RMS values were extracted. The value of coefficient of
variation (CV; standard deviation / mean) of RMS was then
calculated.
ANOVA test was applied on the set of CV values (for
each muscle) to find the difference in variability among the
three muscles due to handwriting activities.
III. RESULT
RMS value was used as a mean to represent the
amplitude of the muscle signal during handwriting process.
The average of CV values for RMS in two different writing
styles is shown in Fig. 4. CV values for APB muscle were
observed to be higher than the other muscles in both tasks
(uppercase and lowercase letters).
In term of statistical analysis, there was no significant
difference shown in variability among the three muscles as
detailed out in Table 2.
Figure 4: Graph of CV Value for RMS in Two Different Tasks.
819
Table 2: Anova Analysis for Coefficient of Variation (CV) of RMS
MUSCLE/ APB FCU FCR ANOVA
PARAMETER
TASK MEAN (%) (SD) p < 0.05
7.40 6.40 5.70
RMS TASK 1 (0.028) (0.025) (0.021) 0.194
6.40 4.80 4.40
TASK2 (0.033) (0.019) (0.021) 0.079
*** Task 1= Uppercase letters; Task 2=Lowercase letters
IV. DISCUSSION
This study aimed to find the relationship of muscle signal
variability in three different muscles due to wrist and thumb
movement during handwriting process. Statistical analysis
showed that there was no significant difference in the
variability of the RMS values. This indicates that the three
studied muscles had comparable muscle activity during
handwriting process.
The RMS value reflects the changes of amplitude occur
during handwriting process. On the other hand, the changes
of CV values indicate either the muscle is working
dynamically or working as stabilizer [14]. Because of its
higher variability value, APB muscle could be used to
indicate the dynamic process of handwriting activity. This is
aligned with the statement made by Naider-Steinhart and
Katz-Leurer [14] which highlights the involvement of thumb
muscle in dynamic handwriting process based on the muscle
high CV value.
Even though wrist extension also plays a role in good
handwriting, thumb opposition plays a very important role in
pencil grasping. Due to its unique joint at its base, thumb is
able to move in several directions. Therefore its muscle
variability is expected to be higher than the two forearm
muscles (FCU and FCR) that control the wrist. The lower
CV values at forearm areas may indicate that the wrist is
acted as a stabiliser during handwriting activity [21].
However, since there was no significant difference in
variability among the three muscles, the FCU and FCR
muscles could still be considered when studying muscle
activity during handwriting process.
The relationship between the muscle activity and writing
task (uppercase and lowercase letters) was also analysed in
this study. According to Di Pietro [22], motor habits are
fluent when performing writing task using lowercase letters
as compared to uppercase letters. This study agreed with the
statement because the variability of RMS value in task using
lowercase letter was lower than the one for the uppercase
letters. Less variation in amplitude reflects the fluency of
the hand movement. The fluent hand movement when
writing lowercase letters may cause a writer to pay less
attention in holding the writing utensil and as a result, their
hands move more freely during writing. However, it is
important to note that there was no significant difference
found (p-value = 0.18) in terms of the variability of the
amplitude between the two tasks.
 2014 IEEE Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, 8 - 10 December 2014, Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia

V. CONCLUSION [15] G. V. Dimitrov, T. I. Arabadzhiev, J.-Y. Hogrel, and N. A. Dimitrova,

“Simulation analysis of interference EMG during fatiguing voluntary
The importance of APB, FCU, and FCR muscles has contraction. Part II-Changes in amplitude and spectral characteristics,”
been probed. The three muscles have shown similar Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, vol. 18, pp. 35-43,
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