Theodore Iwashyna and colleagues studied why about 5% of ICU patients end up spending weeks there, moving from one critical illness to another – often unrelated to their original crisis – without improving. “The reason why these patients came in to the hospital in the first place doesn’t matter nearly as much anymore. What matters is that they’ve been there, and some aspects of how well their body worked before they came in, such as age.”

More about Iwashyna looks for answers to cascading critical illnesses among some ICU patients >