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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Mar 27.
Published in final edited form as: Crit Care Med. 2009 Oct;37(10 0):S354–S367. doi: 10.1097/CCM.0b013e3181b6e439

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Force-frequency relationships in patients with sepsis and multiple organ failure. Force-frequency curves of adductor pollicis muscle during supramaximal ulnar nerve stimulation before performing the fatigue protocol (mean ± standard deviation). Force is significantly lower in patients with sepsis and multiple organ failure (full circles; n = 13) compared with healthy volunteers (triangles; n = 7) both before (open triangles) and after (solid triangles) 2 wks of immobilization of their lower arm and thumb. *p < .01 vs. volunteers before and after immobilization; #p < .05 vs. volunteers before immobilization. These data indicate that sepsis significantly reduced muscle force generation in peripheral muscle whereas immobilization had no effect. Reproduced with permission from Eikermann et al (56).