Critical illness polyneuropathy (CIP) and critical illness myopathy (CIM) are overlapping syndrome

Syndrome

In medicine and psychology, a syndrome is the association of several clinically recognizable features, signs , symptoms , phenomena or characteristics that often occur together, so that the presence of one or more features alerts the physician to the possible presence of the others...

s of widespread muscle

Muscle

Muscle is a contractile tissue of animals and is derived from the mesodermal layer of embryonic germ cells. Muscle cells contain contractile filaments that move past each other and change the size of the cell. They are classified as skeletal, cardiac, or smooth muscles. Their function is to...

 weakness and neurological

Neurology

Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...

 dysfunction that can develop in critically ill

Intensive care medicine

Intensive-care medicine or critical-care medicine is a branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis and management of life threatening conditions requiring sophisticated organ support and invasive monitoring.- Overview :...

 patients receiving intensive care. CIP and CIM have similar symptoms and presentations and are often distinguished largely on the basis of specialized electrophysiologic testing

Electrophysiology

Electrophysiology is the study of the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues. It involves measurements of voltage change or electric current on a wide variety of scales from single ion channel proteins to whole organs like the heart...

 or muscle and nerve biopsy

Biopsy

A biopsy is a medical test involving sampling of cells or tissues for examination. It is the medical removal of tissue from a living subject to determine the presence or extent of a disease. The tissue is generally examined under a microscope by a pathologist, and can also be analyzed chemically...

. The causes of CIP and CIM are unknown, though they are thought to be a possible neurological manifestation of systemic inflammatory response syndrome

Systemic inflammatory response syndrome

Systemic inflammatory response syndrome is an inflammatory state affecting the whole body, frequently a response of the immune system to infection, but not necessarily so...

. Corticosteroid

Corticosteroid

Corticosteroids are a class of steroid hormones that are produced in the adrenal cortex. Corticosteroids are involved in a wide range of physiologic systems such as stress response, immune response and regulation of inflammation, carbohydrate metabolism, protein catabolism, blood electrolyte...

s and neuromuscular blocking agents, which are widely used in intensive care, may contribute to the development of CIP and CIM, as may elevations in blood sugar

Hyperglycemia

Hyperglycemia or Hyperglycæmia, or high blood sugar, is a condition in which an excessive amount of glucose circulates in the blood plasma. This is generally a glucose level higher than 13.5mmol/l , but symptoms may not start to become noticeable until even higher values such as 15-20 mmol/l...

, which frequently occur in critically ill patients.