Use of Neurostimulation As a Tool for Reconditioning the Neuromuscular System of Patients Admitted to the ICU for Septic Shock

Patients hospitalized in the ICU are likely to develop sarcopenia due to a progressive and generalized decrease in muscle mass that is responsible for generalized muscle weakness known as resuscitation neuromyopathy. This neuromyopathy is known make weaning from mechanical ventilation more difficult, which prolongs the hospitalization of patients in the ICU and in hospital. The factors identified as being partly responsible for this neuromyopathy are: immobilization, undernutrition, prolonged duration of mechanical ventilation, inflammation (notably secondary to sepsis), and multivisceral failure. These factors are essentially found in patients in septic shock, which represents about 20% of patients admitted to the ICU, with a mortality rate close to 50%. If the management of septic shock is now well codified (i.e. vascular filling, antibiotics and/or treatment of the infectious focus by surgery +/- organ replacement therapy) as well as the early rehabilitation of ICU patients, no treatments has yet been proven to be effective in limiting the appearance of resuscitation neuromyopathy. For the last ten years, research using electrostimulation (ES) to improve muscle contraction seems to give encouraging results, both for length of hospital stay and the duration of mechanical ventilation, notably through the preservation or a significant increase in muscle strength. On the other hand, other studies did not show a significant effect on muscle strength. These conflicting results are partly related to the heterogeneity of the populations included in the studies and to the different ES approaches used to assess and recondition motor function. In the present STIMUREA study, an original approach is proposed based on experimental research work carried out for many years within U1093 (Pr Charalambos Papaxanthis) which focuses on ES, not of the muscle surface as in most studies carried out in the ICU, but an approach based on ES of the motor nerve. Indeed, the intensity of ES