Could Changes in Sternocleidomastoid Muscle Thickness be a Predictor of Sarcopenia in Intensive Care Patients?

In order to prevent sarcopenia in intensive care patients and to guide nutritional therapy, evaluation of muscle thickness with ultrasonography is a modern, simple and non-invasive procedure routinely performed by Anesthesiology and Reanimation specialists. Sarcopenia in intensive care patients has been demonstrated in many studies. It has been studied that routine examination of changes in rectus femoris muscle thickness by ultrasonography is a predictor of sarcopenia. However, the muscles in the neck region, such as the sternocleidomastoid muscle, which are easy to examine, have not been studied very well. There is no study in the literature with the sternocleidomastoid muscle. For this reason, we decided to examine the relationship of sternocleidomastoid muscle thickness with patient characteristics, treatments, feeding route and type, feeding time, length of stay in intensive care unit, as in routine measurements of rectus femoris muscle thickness by ultrasonography.