the ventilatory pump upon which the act of breathing depends. In many neuromuscular disorders, muscle weakness involves the respiratory muscles to an equal or even greater extent than other skeletal muscles. The degree of limb muscle weakness cannot be used as a reliable guide to the presence of respiratory muscle impairment since the correlation between the two may be quite poor.1,2 Respirator...

Aging is associated with alterations in thoracolumbar curvatures and respiratory function. Research information regarding the correlation between thoracolumbar curvatures and a comprehensive examination of respiratory function parameters in older adults is limited. The aim of the present study was to examine the correlation between thoracolumbar curvatures and respiratory function in community-...

Romer LM, Polkey MI. Exercise-induced respiratory muscle fatigue: implications for performance. J Appl Physiol 104: 879–888, 2008. First published December 20, 2007; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.01157.2007.—It is commonly held that the respiratory system has ample capacity relative to the demand for maximal O2 and CO2 transport in healthy humans exercising near sea level. However, this situation ma...

BACKGROUND Sleep disordered breathing (SDB) is common in neuromuscular diseases but its relationship to respiratory function is poorly defined. A study was undertaken to identify distinct patterns of SDB, to clarify the relationships between SDB and lung and respiratory muscle function, and to identify daytime predictors for SDB at its onset, for SDB with continuous hypercapnic hypoventilation,...

We studied 53 patients with proximal myopathy to determine at what level of muscle weakness hypercapnic respiratory failure is likely, and which tests of pulmonary function or respiratory muscle strength would best suggest this development. Respiratory muscle strength was determined from maximal static efforts and in half the patients, both inspiratory and expiratory muscle strengths were less ...

[Purpose] Normal values for respiratory muscle pressures during development in Japanese children have not been reported. The purpose of this study was to investigate respiratory muscle pressures in Japanese children aged 3-12 years. [Subjects and Methods] We measured respiratory muscle pressure values using a manovacuometer without a nose clip, with subjects in a sitting position. Data were col...

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of respiratory muscle fatigue on intercostal and forearm muscle perfusion and oxygenation in patients with heart failure. Five clinically stable heart failure patients with respiratory muscle weakness (age, 66±12 years; left ventricle ejection fraction, 34±3%) and nine matched healthy controls underwent a respiratory muscle fatigue protocol,...

muscle tissue, skeletal muscle as well as cardiac muscle, is commonly affected in mitochondrial disorders. one explanation for this observation is that muscle tissue has a high-energy demand and therefore is more sensitive to a deficiency of mitochondrial energy production than some other tissues. in mitochondrial disorders, skeletal muscle tissue may be affected primarily by defective respirat...