Mild exercise can speed up recovery for ICU patients--study

According to the research, mild exercise can help in lowering use of sedatives as these have to be decreased in order to enable the patient to exercise and reduce the recovery time of severely ill patients in the intensive care unit by more than two to three days.

Dr Dale Needham and his contemporaries from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine initiated the latest study that explored the benefits of mild exercise for critically ill intensive care unit patients.

“Our work challenges physicians to rethink how they treat critically ill patients and shows the downstream benefits of early mobilization exercises,” says Dr Needham, lead author of the present study.

He continues, “Our patients keep telling us that they do not want to be confined to their beds, they want to be awake, alert and moving, and engaged participants in their recovery.”

Study details
For the study, the researchers examined 57 seriously unwell patients who were admitted in the medical intensive care unit (MICU) at Johns Hopkins.

Trained physical and occupational therapists conducted 30 to 45 minutes carefully guided exercise sessions with the study participants. The exercises included leg or arm movements while lying flat on the bed, sitting or standing and walking slowly in the intensive care unit corridors.

A few of the patients undergoing the exercise sessions were on a life support system like mechanical ventilators.

The researchers observed that use of sedative like benzodiazepines got reduced by 26 percent in just four months since the start of the exercise routine for MICU patients.

It may be noted that before the exercise started, most of these patients were getting 47 mg of midazolam and 71 mg of morphine daily and after the exercise started the doses dropped to 15 mg of midazolam and 24 mg of morphine.

Patients are supportive towards exercising in ICU
Dr Needham informs, “Patients are not afraid of exercising while they are in the ICU, and they are embracing this new approach to their care in the ICU.”

“It actually motivates them to get well and reminds them that they have a life outside the four walls surrounding their hospital beds,” he further says.

Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University supported the study that has been published in the online edition of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.