Functional recovery of chronically critically ill patients in the first days after discharge from the intensive care unit: Feasibility of the 6-minute step test.

Background: Survivors of chronic critical illness often experience weakness and functional dependence to various degrees after their intensive care unit (ICU) stay. Evaluating their functional status with the traditional six-minute walk test is challenging due to space constraints or patient intolerance.

Objective: Our aim was to evaluate the feasibility of using the six-minute step test (6MST) as a measure of functional capacity in chronically critically ill patients early after ICU discharge.