ABSTRACT
In forensic medicine, asphyxia often describes a situation where there has been a physical obstruction between the mouth and nose to the alveoli, although other ‘asphyxial mechanisms’ exist, in which there is an inability to utilize oxygen at the cellular level without there being a physical airway obstruction. The term asphyxia is not a term frequently used in clinical medicine and, given the incomplete understanding of the pathophysiology of many deaths occurring following the application of pressure to the chest and neck, for example, its use as a useful descriptive term in such scenarios is perhaps questionable.
