Critical care : the official journal of the Critical Care Forum
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Breath-synchronized electrical stimulation of the expiratory muscles in mechanically ventilated patients: a randomized controlled feasibility study and pooled analysis.
Expiratory muscle weakness leads to difficult ventilator weaning. Maintaining their activity with functional electrical stimulation (FES) may improve outcome. We studied feasibility of breath-synchronized expiratory population muscle FES in a mixed ICU population ("Holland study") and pooled data with our previous work ("Australian study") to estimate potential clinical effects in a larger group. ⋯ Expiratory muscle FES is feasible in selected ICU patients and might be a promising technique within a respiratory muscle-protective ventilation strategy. The next step is to study the effects on weaning and ventilator liberation outcome.