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British Journal of Anaesthesia, 2003, Vol. 91, No. 1 73-80
© 2003 The Board of Management and Trustees of the British Journal of Anaesthesia

Review Article

The abdominal muscles in anaesthesia and after surgery

G. B. Drummond

University Department of Anaesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine, 51 Little France Crescent, Edinburgh EH16 4SA, UKE-mail: g.b.drummond@ed.ac.uk

Keywords: anaesthesia; muscle skeletal; surgery, abdominal

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

‘It is generally agreed that in normal man lying supine the act of expiration is passive’. These are the opening words of the classic paper on abdominal muscle activity during anaesthesia, by Freund, Roos, and Dodd in 1963.32 They had noted abdominal activity in clinical practice, so they studied 24 normal male volunteer subjects. They gave no premedicants and took care to relax the abdomen: they found no activity in conscious subjects. During anaesthesia with halothane, they found that the abdominal muscles became active (Fig. 1) Their findings have been amply corroborated in later studies, although often overlooked by investigators who have concentrated on inspiratory muscle actions, and perhaps come to incorrect conclusions when expiratory activity was a more logical explanation of their findings. For example, many writers have clung to the attractive early theory that the respiratory muscles are depressed by anaesthesia in a form of ‘ascending paralysis’, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Abdominal wall: anatomy and actions

Control of the expiratory muscles

The effects of abdominal muscle contraction

Effects on the lung
Effects on the chest wall
Effects of anaesthesia

Effects of opioids during anaesthesia

Specific circumstances in anaesthesia

Conclusions


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