The spinal column contains nerves that are responsible for conveying messages from the brain to the muscles to generate movement. When the spine is misaligned it impinges on the ability of these nerves to communicate properly with the muscles. This results in abnormal levels of electrical activity in the muscle tissues, causing muscles to become stronger or weaker, tighter or fatigued.
The SEMG reads the amount of activity in the muscles surrounding the spine through small, surface electrodes. The examiner simply places the electrodes on either side of the spine at each spinal level to detect both the strength of the underlying muscles, and the relative balance between the left andright sides. The computer displays the results of the scan on a graph.
The SEMG Scan also produces a graph that estimates the areas and severities of asymmetry of the spine based on the results from the static SEMG. Imbalance in muscle tension can actually produce more spinal misalignments by pulling on the vertebrae unevenly.