Answer to Question #150303 in Human Anatomy and Physiology for sally

Question

You are investigating a murder of a young man who was paralyzed on his lower limbs due to an accident years ago. The autospsy report you received says that rigor mortis is observed on the lower part of body of this man. Comment on this report

Answer 1

Rigor mortis following a severe decline in adenosinetriphosphate (ATP) levels after death causes the body to stiffen (Shedge et al., 2019). The increased concentration of calcium ions in muscle fibres after death compromises muscle cells’ integrity resulting in stiffened muscles. The manifestation of rigor mortis depends on several factors, including the nature of death or duration. For instance, rigor mortis occurs with 12 hours and generally affects involuntary muscles before progressing to proximal regions (Shedge et al., 2019). Accordingly, the deceased paralyzed young developed rigor mortis in the lower body due to inadequate ATP, thus stiffening limb muscles. This results in the manifestation of rigor mortis in the victim’s lower body.

Reference

Shedge, R., Krishan, K., Warrier, V., & Kanchan, T. (2019). Postmortem Changes. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing.