A major conceptual breakthrough occurred in 1967 when KoNNo and MEAD proposed that, under the condition of a fixed spinal position, the chest wall can be considered as a system with two degrees of freedom [1]. They stated that any change in lung volume is accommodated by the sum of the changes in dimensions of the rib cage and of the anterior abdominal wall. When the airways are closed, the che...

The stabilizing effect of the rib cage on the human thoracic spine is still not sufficiently analyzed. For a better understanding of this effect as well as the calibration and validation of numerical models of the thoracic spine, experimental biomechanics data is required. This study aimed to determine (1) the stabilizing effect of the single rib cage structures on the human thoracic spine as w...

Unilateral airway occlusion permits measurement of single lung function. Since the results suggest that the occluded lung influences the mobility of the contralateral hemithorax, we wanted to test this hypothesis. In eight healthy subjects, we measured, using computed tomography, lung parenchymal area and inner rib cage parasagittal and transverse diameters at three different levels and at maxi...

Hyperinflation clearly affects respiratory muscle interaction. It commonly increases the rib cage contribution to chest wall motion, whilst it reduces the abdominal contribution. This change is thought to result from the fact that hyperinflation severely reduces the mechanical advantage of the diaphragm, whilst it affects the mechanical advantage of the neck and rib cage muscles to a lesser ext...

BACKGROUND Mechanical chest compression using a piston device during reanimation is often the only way to ensure stable chest compression at a constant rate and force. However, its use can be associated with severe fractures of the thoracic rib cage and endanger the clinical course of the patient. Thus, the usage of such a piston device during the reanimation has currently been classified as a ...

We investigated the acute physiological responses of tapered flow resistive loading (TFRL) at 30, 50 and 70 % maximal inspiratory pressure (PImax) in 12 healthy adults to determine an optimal load. Increased end-inspiratory rib cage decreased end-expiratory abdominal volumes equally contributed expansion thoracoabdominal tidal volume (captured by optoelectronic plethysmography). A significant d...

The orientation of osteons in cortical bone has been shown to correlate with the loading condition. The purpose of this study is to determine the orientation of osteons in the rib cage to better understand the behavior of the rib cage under mechanical load. A total of 37 rib specimens were removed from 21 rib locations from a male and female cadaver. Eight histological slides were created from ...

Researchers have reported on the importance of the rib cage in maintaining mechanical stability in the thoracic spine and on the validity of a compressive follower preload. However, dynamic mechanical testing using both the rib cage and follower load has never been studied. An in vitro biomechanical study of human cadaveric thoracic specimens with rib cage intact in lateral bending, flexion/ext...

The development of respiratory drive for vocalization was studied by observing chest wall kinematics longitudinally in 4 typically developing children from the age of 9 to 48 months. Measurements of the relative contribution of rib cage and abdominal movement during vocalization (i.e., babbling and true words) and rest breathing were obtained every 3 months using respiratory plethysmography (Re...

A substantial reduction in lung volumes occurs after sternotomy, but the mechanism or mechanisms are unclear. Measurements were made of lung volumes and of chest wall motion with four pairs of magnetometers (two pairs for anteroposterior rib cage, one for lateral rib cage, and one for anteroposterior abdominal dimensions) in 16 men before and one week and three months after coronary artery graf...