Hospitalization could worsen physical, cognitive skills--studies

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University and University of Washington, U.S., established that elderly and people with serious ailments were known to have impaired strength, weakened motion or physical function after being hospitalized often.

Lead researcher, critical care specialist and associate professor, Dale Needham, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine said, “Our work challenges physicians to rethink how they treat critically ill patients and shows the downstream benefits of early mobilisation exercises.”

Details of first study
First study was conducted by Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, wherein researchers studied previous physical and mental records of patients in intensive care units (ICU) of numerous institutions.

Researchers implemented certain changes in one ICU section wherein patients could switch from ‘bed-rest’ to ‘as tolerable’ condition.

Further, patients were given only the required medication than continuous intravenous benzodiazepines--psychoactive drug altering brain function.

Also, patients with protracted muscle weakness were suggested to consult neurologist.

They also set procedures for physical and occupational healing sessions for all patients with physiotherapists.

These changes resulted in a noteworthy decline in patients’ delirium which had earlier caused hallucination or unawareness of their surroundings.

This also resulted in decline in patients taking sedatives or narcotics from about 96 to 73 and 77 percent respectively, along with increase in the level of alertness.

Furthermore, patients undergoing physical or occupational therapy escalated from 70 to 93 percent.

This not only resulted in the implementation of the new protocol in all ICUs but patients taking either or both of the above therapies increased to a four-fold.

Another study
In the second study conducted by University of Washington, researchers followed 3,000 adults for six years to determine any mental or physical changes.

None of the study participants suffered from dementia as the study began.

The study revealed that 1,287 participants were hospitalized for a non-critical illness and 41 for a critical illness, during the six-year period.

There were 146 cases of dementia in people who were never hospitalized in contrast to 228 cases in people who were hospitalized one or more times.

However, researchers stated that this could have been due to low oxygen levels in blood, delirium, inflammation or even medication.

They stressed on further research for the same.