New paper looks at muscle mass and physical recovery in ICU

Xtreme Everest’s Prof Mike Grocott and our collaborator Paul Wischmeyer from the Department of Anesthesiology and Surgery, Duke University School of Medicine and Duke Clinical Research Institute, Durham, North Carolina, USA, have recently released a new paper looking at why despite more people surviving in ICU has the number of survivors going to rehabilitation tripled. Alongside this the team wanted to know why up to half the deaths in the first year following an admission to ICU occur post discharge.

Entitled Muscle mass and physical recovery in ICU: innovations for targeting of nutrition and exercise the group looked at utilising exercise intervention techniques normally used by elite athletes, to see if these can help with optimising both the preparation to leave ICU and the overall recovery of a patient post ICU.

Techniques such as lean body mass (LBM) scanning to predict metabolic reserve, alongside nutrition and exercise interventions could be used to determine what a patient needs. Alongside this personalised CPET testing to look at preoperative fitness could help with creating more survivors and fewer post ICU victims.

To download a copy of the paper, please visit the Current Opinion in Critical Care website