Diaphragmatic involvement in hemiplegia and hemiparesis.

Unilateral underactivity of the respiratory muscles in hemiplegia, although already described by Hughlings Jackson (1895), is still only rarely known to clinicians. We have shown (Korczyn, Leibowitz, and Bruderman, 1969) that on the paretic side of hemiplegics, movements of the diaphragm are of smaller amplitude, both spontaneously and in hyperventilation. Smith (1964), reviewing chest radiographs of 21 hemiplegics, concluded that 'there is suggestive evidence that the diaphragm may be involved in some cases of hemiplegia'. We have now tried to make a statistical analysis of the position of the diaphragm in a larger series of patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS All available chest radiographs of patients with hemi-paresis or hemiplegia of vascular origin hospitalized in