Iatrogenic illnesses are those that arise as a result of the process of medical care and are potentially preventable by improvements to patient care. The term is commonly used to denote medical error; however, for the critically ill patient the term has a much more fundamental meaning. Critical illness is inherently iatrogenic: it only develops in those patients who have been resuscitated from ...

During the worldwide outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002-2003, there were 664 probable SARS patients reported in Taiwan. SARS patients usually present with symptoms related to the respiratory system while neurological manifestations have rarely been described. There were three patients who developed axonopathic polyneuropathy 3-4 weeks after onset of SARS; their clinica...

A polyneuropathy of varying severity has been observed in association with sepsis and critical illness in 15 patients. Since clinical evaluation is often difficult, electrophysiological studies provided definitive evidence for polyneuropathy. These revealed reductions in the amplitudes of compound muscle and sensory nerve action potentials, the most marked abnormality. Near-nerve recordings con...

Muscle diseases can constitute a large variety of both acquired and hereditary disorders. Myopathies in systemic disease results from several different disease processes including endocrine, inflammatory, paraneoplastic, infectious, drug- and toxin-induced, critical illness myopathy, metabolic, and myopathies with other systemic disorders. Patients with systemic myopathies often present acutely...

Abstract Introduction This article reports a case of the difficulty to differentiate between critical illness polyneuropathy and axonal Guillain–Barré syndrome when triggered by subarachnoid haemorrhage. Case report An 81-year-old man was admitted comatose (Glasgow coma scale score 4/15) after a subarachnoid haemorrhage. His neurological condition gradually improved with as best motor response ...

A 40- year-old Male was admitted to the first hospital of Jilin University with the complaint of 4 days of fever and headache and aggravation of weakness in his lower extremities accompanied with dysuria and disturbance of consciousness for one day. He had tachycardia, tachypnea and elevated white blood cell counts. General status of the patient got better day by day, while weakness and pain in...