Medical physiology is the study of the physical processes of human life in health and disease. Physiological systems are able to maintain function and stability in the face of internal dysfunction and external insult. The capacity to do so is called resilience. Failure is a loss of resilience and represents a threat to the continued integrity and viability of a living system. Failure can be caused by discrete subsystem failure (e.g. heart attack) or by systemic dysregulation (e.g. septic shock). Here, we give a “clinical-first view” for resilience and failure. We take a broad scope to include both acute disease as well as chronic disease and aging-associated disease. From an engineering perspective, we have thematic emphasis on the emergence of resilience from nonlinearity and interconnected systems. Likewise, we discuss the flip-side of nonlinearity and interconnection: the transition from resilience to failure can be abrupt and difficult to predict. Finally, given the importance of resilience and failure in several key challenges in clinical care, we make connections to data and clinical decision-making.
Introduction to Resilience and Failure
Resilience, Failure, and Pathophysiology
Complexity and Physiological Resilience, Deterioration, and Failure