Neuromuscular electrical stimulation in critically ill traumatic brain injury patients attenuates muscle atrophy, neurophysiological disorders, and weakness: a randomized controlled trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Critically ill traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients experience extensive muscle damage during their stay in the intensive care unit. Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) has been considered a promising treatment to reduce the functional and clinical impacts of this. However, the time needed for NMES to produce effects over the muscles is still unclear. This study primarily aimed to assess the time needed and effects of an NMES protocol on muscle architecture, neuromuscular electrophysiological disorder (NED), and muscle strength, and secondarily, to evaluate the effects on plasma systemic inflammation, catabolic responses, and clinical outcomes. Methods We performed a randomized clinical trial in critically ill TBI patients. The control group received only conventional physiotherapy, while the NMES group additionally underwent daily NMES for 14 days in the lower limb muscles. Participants were assessed at baseline and on days 3, 7, and 14 of their stay in the intensive care unit. The primary outcomes were assessed with muscle ultrasound, neuromuscular electrophysiology, and evoked peak force, and the secondary outcomes with plasma cytokines, matrix metalloproteinases, and clinical outcomes. Results Sixty participants were randomized, and twenty completed the trial from each group. After 14 days, the control group presented a significant reduction in muscle thickness of tibialis anterior and rectus femoris, mean of − 0.33 mm (− 14%) and − 0.49 mm (− 21%),p < 0.0001, respectively, while muscle thickness was preserved in the NMES group. The control group presented a higher incidence of NED: 47% vs. 0% in the NMES group,p < 0.0001, risk ratio of 16, and the NMES group demonstrated an increase in the evoked peak force (2.34 kg/f,p < 0.0001), in contrast to the control group (− 1.55 kg/f,p < 0.0001). The time needed for the NMES protocol to prevent muscle architecture disorders and treat weakness was at least 7 days, and 14 days to treat NED. The secondary outcomes exhibited less precise results, with confidence intervals that spanned worthwhile or trivial effects. Conclusions NMES applied daily for fourteen consecutive days reduced muscle atrophy, the incidence of NED, and muscle weakness in critically ill TBI patients. At least 7 days of NMES were required to elicit the first significant results. Trial registration The trial was registered at ensaiosclinicos.gov.br under protocol RBR-8kdrbz on 17 January 2016.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".