Rapid Onset of Neuromuscular Paralysis or Weakness

The focus of this narrative review is the differential diagnosis of disease involving the peripheral or lower motor neuron component of the neurology of breathing. The clinical context is limited to those conditions leading to admission to the intensive care unit with a time course often described as acute or of rapid onset, meaning within days to weeks. However, the article also reviews those underlying inherited or congenital conditions that may have gone unnoticed until fulminant deterioration with respiratory failure.