Next generation of a non-invasive-stimulated Muscle Force Assessment System to Study the ICU Patient

摘要

When patients are immobilized for long-time periods and/or are critically ill, they can loose large amounts of the muscle mass within weeks. Hence, they will dramatically loose their muscle forces. There is a need to develop noninvasive-stimulated muscle force assessment systems (MFAS) for monitoring such patients. A previous MFAS was heavy, bulky and thus often not practicable for use consistently on patients in the intensive care unit environment, Fig. 1 [1, 2]. Force assessment in lower leg is suitable in ICU patients and has been validated and correlated to voluntary forces [2].