Safety and Performance of Muscle Activation for Critical Care Patients

Critically-ill patients who have long stays in the hospital often face prolonged periods of bed rest. It is known that these patient develop profound weakness and debilitation. The effectiveness of existing muscle activation devices that could otherwise prevent the onset of debilitation in an immobilized patient has not been demonstrated widely in this cohort. It is hypothesized that using thermal methods to augment existing muscle activation techniques may demonstrate improved performance with no corresponding change in the safety profile.