Suspended animation?

[Zachary Smith]

^^ OK. I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on the InterWeb; however, I don't know enough about tendons and ligaments to know if reduced cellular activity will prevent them from atrophying. I'm just throwing out ideas of "what if".

I AM a doctor (DC) and it seems to me that if ALL activity is suspended, including at the cellular level, there should be no atrophying. While it's true muscles actually begin to atrophy within hours if inactive, it seems with NO cellular activity, there'd be no mechanism to promote atrophy.

It's important to get trauma patients up and moving ASAP following an injury (the old idea of "stay in bed til your well" was totally wrong) and one of the reasons is that cellular activity produces waste products which can damage tissues if not removed. Sure, the arterial system has that nice big ol'heart pumping away to bring in the oxygenated blood and nutrients but the poor ol' VENOUS system relies on muscular movement to carry away the waste products. One of the consequences of reduced activity is venous stasis, which can result in blood clots and all kinds of nasties.

Again though, with no cellular activity, I can't think of why there'd be any atrophy.

Incidentally, I don't think there IS much atrophy in tendons and ligaments due to inactivity--it's the muscles which atrophy. Tendons attach muscle to bone and ligament hold bones together.

Yep, I know you're a doctor (although the haters consider you a Quackopractor). I thought the ligaments and tendons had a role in moving arms, legs, feet, hands, fingers, etc.

Anyway, here's another issue -- bed sores. Even if all cellular activity is slowed, wouldn't there be a chance bed sores could develop? I spent almost 10 days in the hospital after a modified RPLND and even though I got up and "exercised" as much as possible, I still had a sore develop on the heel of my right foot.

Well, you can't move if the muscles aren't attached to the bone, so in that sense at least, yeah, tendons have *a* role in movement.

Bed sores (pressures sores) tend to be the result of accumulated micro-trauma. Every time you move, you injure your body--BUT you heal up when you sleep at night and, in most cases, you heal faster than you injure so you don't SEE the results of your trauma. When you are immobilized, again, you are causing REDUCED blood flow to the areas in question, disallowing the entry of nutrients and making it hard for the blood stream to carry away waste products and toxins. When a person is not moving also, friction plays a role in damaging tissues. Now, you might say, "the person is immobile--where does the friction come from?". But a movement even as subtle as the pulse can result in damage if the tissue is compressed and the pressure is held for hours or days or weeks. Weight of the body on top of the tissues also stresses the cells structurally and, like anything, if they are fatigued long enough, they will begin to collapse. Here's where you really start having trouble too, because lysing cells release all kinds of inflammtory agents and toxins and waste products that begin a cascade effect resulting in MORE cell death, which releases more toxins etc. It can get nasty pretty fast.

Again though, without ANY cellular activity, it seems hard to imagine what might be the source for damage, minus the weight of the body resting on its own tissues. Perhaps suspension of the body in a fluid envelope of some sort might be the answer.

 

[Scout101]

^That would also help maintain a uniform temperature across the entire body, which could be a plus. And think how great your skin would be after a decade-long nutrient bath