PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY AND NEUROMUSCULAR BLOCKADE PRESENTING AS PROLONGED RESPIRATORY PARALYSIS FOLLOWING CRITICAL ILLNESS

We report two patients who following critical illness presented with g eneralised paralysis associated with persistent failure to breathe. Bo th patients eventually recovered and were weaned from the ventilator. The cause of the paralysis was an unusual peripheral neuropathy in the first patient and persistent neuromuscular blockade secondary to vecu ronium in the second. It is important to consider a reversible, possib ly even iatrogenic, cause of this type of complication.