Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are some of the sickest in the hospital, and need life-saving therapies such as breathing machines to stay alive. As more patients survive the ICU, up to 1 in 4 have severe leg weakness affecting their quality of life for up to 4 years after their ICU stay. One common physiotherapy treatment, electrical muscle stimulation, may help increase muscle strength in ICU survivors. The main goal of this study is to see if there is a difference in leg strength between patients who receive muscle stimulation and those who do not. Patients on breathing machines in the ICU for more than 2 days will receive 1 of 2 treatments: (1) muscle stimulation or (2) mock muscle stimulation. Patients will be assigned to either treatment in a manner similar to flipping a coin. Only the lead researcher, who gives the study treatment, will be aware of who is receiving which study treatment to minimize bias. Patients will have their leg strength tested by specially trained physiotherapists who are unaware of the study treatment. All patients will receive treatments as long as they are in the ICU. This study will give us important information about the usefulness of muscle stimulation to increase muscle strength in ICU patients. As the future demand for breathing machines in Canada is expected to increase by 80%, studies like this will be helpful to reduce the impact of muscle weakness on ICU survivors.