Department of Legal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf, Butenfeld 34, 22529, Hamburg, Germany.
Int J Legal Med. 2013 Jan;127(1):127-30. doi: 10.1007/s00414-011-0632-z. Epub 2011 Oct 21.
In forensic medicine, there is an undefined data background for the phenomenon of re-establishment of rigor mortis after mechanical loosening, a method used in establishing time since death in forensic casework that is thought to occur up to 8 h post-mortem. Nevertheless, the method is widely described in textbooks on forensic medicine. We examined 314 joints (elbow and knee) of 79 deceased at defined time points up to 21 h post-mortem (hpm). Data were analysed using a random intercept model. Here, we show that re-establishment occurred in 38.5% of joints at 7.5 to 19 hpm. Therefore, the maximum time span for the re-establishment of rigor mortis appears to be 2.5-fold longer than thought so far. These findings have major impact on the estimation of time since death in forensic casework.
在法医学中，机械松解后再僵直现象的确切数据背景尚不清楚，这种方法被用于法医学中死亡时间推断，据认为死后 8 小时内都可能发生。然而，该方法在法医学教科书中被广泛描述。我们在死后 7 至 21 小时（hpm）的时间点检查了 79 名死者的 314 个关节（肘部和膝盖）。使用随机截距模型对数据进行了分析。结果显示，7.5 至 19 hpm 时，38.5%的关节出现了再僵直。因此，再僵直发生的最大时间跨度似乎比目前认为的要长 2.5 倍。这些发现对法医学中死亡时间推断有重大影响。
