Muscle Recovery After Critical Illness

Patients surviving critical illness develop significant impairments in skeletal muscle, commonly referred to as ICU-acquired weakness (ICUAW)[8-10]. It is estimated that up to 70-80% of patients admitted to ICU will develop some degree of neuromuscular dysfunction, weakness, myopathy or atrophy [11,12]. ICUAW encompasses muscle impairments that develop as a direct result of admission for critical illness[13] and is an independent predictor of mortality and long-term functional impairments[14-19]. Interventions to mitigate muscle deficits and improve physical function are a critical area of rehabilitation because of the high prevalence of short- and long-term impairments. ICU survivorship is particularly important as roughly 6 million Americans will survive an acute admission to the ICU this year alone.[24-26] Survivors of critical illnesses such as sepsis, viral-illnesses including coronaviruses, and acute respiratory failure (ARF) have reduced quality of life, lost wages from inability to return to work and increased caregiver and healthcare burden for years after hospital discharge.[27-31] Impairments in skeletal muscle are known contributors to physical disability and specifically prevent the performance of simple daily life activities like standing up from a chair. However, very little is known about cellular mechanisms leading to muscle and physical dysfunction in patients surviving critical illness during recovery. These gaps in knowledge are significant because identifying the phenotypes and underlying cellular mechanisms that lead to impaired muscle and physical function will facilitate the development of pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions to mitigate or reverse disability. From a scientific perspective, this proposal is noteworthy because it will be the first to assess muscle protein synthesis rates in combination with cellular phenotypes, muscle strength, and physical function in patients recovering from an ICU admission. Studying muscle at the cellular level and integrating that knowledge with physical function will help improve our understanding of why certain patients fail to recover.

Elucidating cellular mechanisms during recovery phase will provide the framework to develop interventions in subsequent studies. We will assess measures of muscle and physical function in the first year of recovery to establish why some patients have restored function, yet others have sustained disability. Improved classification of muscle dysfunction and physical function enables future studies to employ a targeted approach instead of the historical rehabilitation approach of one-size-fits-all. Specifically, the cellular findings will lead to development of novel interventions specifically designed for the underlying mechanisms, while identification of the recovery trajectories will enhance clinicians' ability to implement interventions to patients with the greatest need.