Skeletal muscle dysfunction in critical care: wasting, weakness, and rehabilitation strategies.

Understanding the trajectory of skeletal muscle loss, evaluating its relationship to the subsequent functional impairment, and understanding the underlying mechanisms of skeletal muscle wasting will provide goals for novel treatment strategies in the intensive care setting. A focused approach on the effect of critical illness on muscle morphology, muscle protein turnover, and the associated muscle-signaling pathways during the early and recovery stages of critical illness is required. This could potentially lead to targeted pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic strategies to treat, or even prevent, peripheral muscle wasting and weakness.