Quality improvement: The delivery of true early mobilisation in an intensive care unit.

Early mobilisation initiatives within the critical care environment have been shown to improve outcomes for patients. Early mobilisation has been defined as occurring within the first two to five days of the intensive care stay, but in practice this can be difficult to deliver. We conducted a quality improvement (QI) project to deliver early mobilisation in a large general intensive care unit.

A repeated measures, randomised cross-over trial, comparing the acute exercise response between passive and active sitting in critically ill patients.

Background: Early mobilisation of critically ill patients is safe and beneficial, but the metabolic cost of exercise remains unquantified. This study compared the acute exercise response in critically ill participants during passive and active sitting.

Method: We conducted a prospective, randomised, cross-over study, in ventilated patients receiving rehabilitative physiotherapy.