Prospects for measuring the rheologic characteristics of human soft tissues based on the recording of their transverse rigidity

It is shown by an example of a forearm that to determine objective characteristics of rheological properties of soft human tissues by measuring their transverse stiffness (K) one should first investigate the relation between K and the diameter of the used indentor (d). The nonlinearity of the dependence K(d) for indentor diameters from 2 to 8 mm is demonstrated and it is assumed that this nonlinearity is due to heterogeneity of tissue properties in the directions normal to the axis of force action.