What's the difference between spasm and stiffness?

Spasm


Definition:

  • (v. t.) An involuntary and unnatural contraction of one or more muscles or muscular fibers.
  • (v. t.) A sudden, violent, and temporary effort or emotion; as, a spasm of repentance.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The generally accepted hypothesis is a coronary spasm but a direct cardiotoxicity of 5-FU cannot be.
  • (2) Oculomotor paresis with cyclic spasms is a rare syndrome, usually noticeable at birth or developing during the first year of life.
  • (3) The ophthalmic headache's crisis is caused, in fact, by a spasm of convergence on an unknown exophory of which the amplitude of fusion is satisfying, and the presence of which can only be seen with test under screen.
  • (4) The present case indicates that the possibility of osseous spines impinging on the facial nerve should be considered in all cases of facial spasm.
  • (5) The coronary arteriography reveals a spasm in the normal left anterior descendens artery.
  • (6) Increasing awareness of disorders such as coronary arterial spasm, functional impairment of subendocardial blood flow and the possible role of variant patterns of anatomic distribution of the coronary arterial tree, will provide a better understanding of their significance as determining or contributing factors in patients with the anginal syndrome.
  • (7) Thus one may speculate that endothelin plays a role in the coronary spasm which has been shown in patients with angina pectoris.
  • (8) in 1937, the arterial spasm may have occurred at the time of cerebral embolism.
  • (9) Coronary spasm was provoked by ergonovine maleate in four of 12 patients in group A (33%) and in three patients in group B (18%).
  • (10) In 2 cases, sublingual nitroglycerin failed to completely relieve the spasm.
  • (11) Furthermore, an association of tiapride-corticoids was effective in treating post-anaesthetic spasm of the glottis.
  • (12) Case histories of two patients with hypertensive LES and normal peristalsis in the body of the esophagus are contrasted to that of a patient with a hypertensive LES and diffuse esophageal spasm.
  • (13) Whether they affect ureteral motility in vivo or whether they can counteract ureteral spasm associated with ureteral stones have not been established.
  • (14) Thrombotic occlusion, in association with varying degrees of plaque disruption and coronary artery spasm, represents the major cause of acute myocardial infarction (AMI).
  • (15) The patients with spasm on top of a fixed organic lesion underwent a successful aorto-coronary bypass graft together with resection of the pre- and sub-aortic nerve plexus.
  • (16) In vitro tests with isolated trachea or ileum of guinea pigs show that flupirtine possesses no or very weak antagonism against histamine-induced spasms.
  • (17) The spasms were inhibited by gallopamil (100 nM) and diltiazem (1 microM).
  • (18) Indeed this procedure is the only one which can act in a fitted manner on muscular spasms responsible of more than 60% of convergent squints.
  • (19) Such an exercise response should suggest significant fixed coronary stenosis in addition to coronary spasm.
  • (20) Evidence is provided for the concept of enlarged spasms (phenomenon of the spastic dominant) common to peptic ulcer.

Stiffness


Definition:

  • (n.) The quality or state of being stiff; as, the stiffness of cloth or of paste; stiffness of manner; stiffness of character.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) If you turn the bowl upside down, the whites should be stiff enough not to fall out.
  • (2) The stiffness of the fibre first rose abruptly in response to stretch and then started to decrease linearly while the stretch went on; after the completion of stretch the stiffness decreased towards a steady value which was equal to that during the isometric tetanus at the same sarcomere length, indicating that the enhancement of isometric force is associated with decreased stiffness.
  • (3) Current methodology for the in vitro determination of aortic and large artery stiffness is reviewed and involves three approaches: (1) the estimation of distensibility by pulse wave velocity measurement; (2) the estimation of distensibility from the fractional diameter change of a given arterial segment by imaging techniques (e.g., angiography, Doppler ultrasound) against pressure change; (3) the estimation of compliance by determining volume change against pressure change in the arterial system during diastolic runoff from the Windkessel model of the circulation.
  • (4) The maintenance of adequate blood circulation requires a sufficient ventricular contractility; in addition, to eject blood, the ventricles must first receive a sufficient volume, requiring a low diastolic stiffness.
  • (5) Stiffness was reduced in approximate proportion to the ramp stretch rate, and the reduction was confined largely to the elastic component.
  • (6) Proof stress, ultimate tensile strength, elongation, and plastic stiffness have been measured and results compared by use of analyses of variance.
  • (7) In other words, the stiffness of these areas was low and the recovery from deformation was fast.
  • (8) But the same court also just refused to hear an appeal of a Minnesota woman who's been ordered to pay more than $220,000 for downloading two-dozen songs – a testament to Congress' gift to Hollywood and its allies in the form of absurdly stiff penalties for minor infringement.
  • (9) The tension-length relation for the unstimulated (passive) cell is also linear between 1r and the elastic limit, but is displaced from the active tension-length curve and is of reduced stiffness.
  • (10) Bilaterals in summit seasons can be stiff exchanges, where digressions can carry risks: not enough said, too much said.
  • (11) We measured the stiffness of comparable configurations (1 or 2 bars) under axial compression, four-point-bending in two planes, and torsion.
  • (12) Tiny, tiny... rodents – some soft and grey, some brown with black stripes, in paintings, posters, wallcharts, thumb-tacked magazine clippings and poorly executed crayon drawings, hurling themselves fatally in their thousands over the cliff of their island home; or crudely taxidermied and mounted, eyes glazed and little paws frozen stiff – on every available surface.
  • (13) The bone stiffness also correlates strongly with the geometry (area) and slightly with bone mass; however, an unexpectedly low correlation was found between stiffness and density.
  • (14) Finally, fibrosis may paradoxically reduce passive stiffness if it leads to a thinning of the interventricular septum.
  • (15) A young male nephrotic patient, who was given small doses of clofibrate for hyperlipaemia, developed muscle pain, stiffness and very high serum levels of muscle enzymes.
  • (16) Impaired left ventricular stiffness may be an additional criterion for using corinfar in patients with coronary heart disease.
  • (17) The increase of elastic fibres following denervation and reinnervation represents an obviously meaningful reaction that may compensate for loss of tonic properties of muscle spindles without causing stiffness.
  • (18) Only the bone-patellar tendon-bone unit had maximum force and stiffness greater than that of the ACL.
  • (19) The initial stiffness is poorly described by material or catheter gauge.
  • (20) The stiffness tester and torque meter were found to yield nearly the same measurements of bending deformation for orthodontic wires as small as .007 inch diameter, provided the different bending apparatus are calibrated to each other.