We assessed the medium-term outcome of three methods of isolated calf lengthening in cerebral palsy by clinical examination, observational gait analysis and, where appropriate, instrumented gait analysis. The procedures used were percutaneous lengthening of tendo Achillis, open Z-lengthening of tendo Achillis and lengthening of the gastrosoleus aponeurosis (Baker's procedure). We reviewed 195 p...

A single shortening contraction reduces the force capacity of muscle fibers, whereas force capacity is enhanced following lengthening. However, how motor unit recruitment and discharge rate (muscle activation) are adapted to such changes in force capacity during submaximal contractions remains unknown. Additionally, there is limited evidence for force enhancement in larger muscles. We therefore...

An important function of skeletal muscle is deceleration via active muscle fascicle lengthening, which dissipates movement energy. The mechanical interplay between muscle contraction and tendon elasticity is critical when muscles produce energy. However, the role of tendon elasticity during muscular energy dissipation remains unknown. We tested the hypothesis that tendon elasticity functions as...

Many locomotor activities require muscles to actively lengthen, dissipate energy and decelerate the body. These eccentric contractions can disrupt cytoskeletal structures within myofibrils and reduce force output. We examined how architectural features of pennate muscles can provide a protective mechanism against eccentric muscle damage by limiting fascicle lengthening. It has been previously s...

Skeletal muscles can be injured by their own contractions, especially when the muscle is stretched during a lengthening contraction. Exposing a muscle to a conditioning protocol of stretches without activation (passive stretches) before lengthening contractions reduces contraction-induced injury. Although passive stretching does not damage muscle fibers, neutrophils are elevated in the muscle a...

In 1986, a programme was initiated by the senior author to develop a reliable, mechanically activated, intramedullary lengthening device with a non-invasive means of measuring the progress of lengthening without X-ray. We report results of design, biomechanical testing, in vivo animal testing and clinical implantation of the first 20 intramedullary skeletal kinetic distractors (ISKDs) in adult ...

Temporal effects of focus in Swedish were studied in short sentences with systematic variation of the length and prosodic pattern of target words in different syntactic positions. Generally, focus caused an average increase in word duration of about 25%. Variations of word length, stress, or word accent pattern did not produce any systematic effects on the amount of lengthening of the target wo...

We investigate lengthening in spontaneous speech with the aim in mind to use it as a time-management strategy in incremental spoken dialogue systems. lengthening is a common feature of speech, occurring regularly near the edges of intonation phrases. It behaves similar to disfluencies when it occurs in places remote from phrasal boundaries. Disfluencies have proven useful in incremental spoken ...

Neural control of muscle contraction seems to be unique during muscle lengthening. The present study aimed to determine the specific sites of modulatory control for lengthening compared with isometric contractions. We used stimulation of the motor cortex and corticospinal tract to observe changes at the spinal and cortical levels. Motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) and cervicomedullary MEPs (CMEPs)...

When we lengthen a bone in a child, the parents and the family circle are often obsessed by the amount a lengthening obtained. However, for the surgeon, lengthen a bone is quite pretty easy, but dealing with the joints above and below the lengthening area can be very challenging. Indeed, during the lengthening process, muscles and tendons will be progressively stretched, leading to potential jo...