What is muscular atrophy and what are its symptoms?

Atrophy of muscles throughout the body is generally caused by muscular dystrophy. The most obvious symptom of this disease is atrophy of muscles in the body. Some will atrophy slowly, while some patients will experience more rapid atrophy. You can learn more about this disease.

The structure and function of the muscular system

Human skeletal muscles generally have no less than 434 pieces, which account for 25% of the total body weight of a newborn and 40-45% of the body weight of an adult. All voluntary human activities are accomplished through muscle contraction. The blood supply required for muscle activity accounts for 12% of the total cardiac output and 18% of the body's oxygen consumption. Muscles are one of the important organs for human metabolism, especially sugar metabolism.

Striated muscle is composed of many parallel muscle fibers. Myofiber is muscle cell, which is cylindrical in shape, with sarcoplasm inside and serous membrane outside. There are several myonuclei, many mitochondria, ribosomes and other cell organelles in the sarcoplasm, and it is penetrated by many longitudinal and transverse tubular sarcoplasmic reticulum. Certain parts of the sarcoplasmic reticulum store calcium ions. There is a concave fold on the serosa, which forms the motor end plate with the motor nerve endings and is the neuromuscular junction, that is, the synapse.

Symptoms

Thigh muscle atrophy: It is common for patients with femoral head necrosis to experience thigh muscle atrophy. The severity of muscle atrophy varies. Most patients with femoral head necrosis can recover from thigh muscle atrophy, but a few patients with femoral head necrosis cannot recover from thigh muscle atrophy throughout their lives, which seriously affects the patient's walking distance and quality of life. 100% of patients with mid-to-late stage femoral head necrosis have varying degrees of thigh muscle atrophy in the affected limb, which has a great impact on the walking of patients with femoral head necrosis, directly limiting the recovery of strength in the affected thigh, and also limiting the length of patients' walking.

Calf muscle atrophy: Calf muscle atrophy refers to striated muscle dystrophy, in which the muscle volume is smaller than normal, the muscle fibers become thinner or even disappear.

Hand muscle atrophy: It is a type of muscle atrophy.

Muscular atrophy refers to the reduction in muscle volume caused by nutritional disorders of skeletal muscles, thinning or even disappearance of muscle fibers.