When is it safe to exercise mechanically ventilated patients in the intensive care unit? An evaluation of consensus recommendations in a cardiothoracic setting.

Rationale: Consensus recommendations have been developed to guide exercise rehabilitation of mechanically ventilated patients in the intensive care unit.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the safety of exercise rehabilitation of mechanically ventilated patients and evaluate the consensus recommendations.

Methods: This was a prospective, single-centre, cohort study conducted in a specialist cardiothoracic intensive care unit of a tertiary, university affiliated hospital in Australia.

Results: 91 mechanically ventilated participants; 54 (59.3%) male; mean age of 56.52 (16.3) years; were studied with 809 occasions of service recorded. Ten (0.0182%) minor adverse events were recorded, with only one adverse event occurring when a patient was receiving moderate level of vasoactive support.

Conclusions: The consensus recommendations are a useful tool in guiding safe exercise rehabilitation of mechanically ventilated patients. Our findings suggest that there is further scope to safely commence exercise rehabilitation in patients receiving vasoactive support.