Rehabilitation in the intensive care unit: How amount of physical and occupational therapy affects patients' function and hospital length of stay

Background: Patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) often experience extended periods of immobility. Following hospital discharge, many face impaired mobility and never return to their baseline function. Although the benefits of physical and occupational rehabilitation are well established in non-ICU patients, a paucity of work describes effective practices to alleviate ICU-related declines in mobility. Objective: To assess how rehabilitation with physical and occupational therapy (PT-OT) during ICU stays affects patients' mobility, self-care, and length of hospital stay. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: Inpatient ICU. Participants: A total of 6628 adult patients who received physical rehabilitation across multiple sites (Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) of a single institution between January 2018 and December 2021. Interventions: Not applicable. Main outcome measures: Descriptive statistics, linear regression models, and gradient boosting machine methods were used to determine the relationship between the amount of PT-OT received and outcomes of hospital length of stay (LOS), Activity Measure for Post-Acute Care Daily Activity and Basic Mobility scores. Results: The 6628 patients who met inclusion criteria received an average (median) of 23 (range: 1-89) minutes of PT-OT per day. Regression analyses showed each additional 10 minutes of PT-OT per day was associated with a 1.0% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.41-1.66, p < .001) higher final Basic Mobility score, a 1.8% (95% CI: 1.30%-2.34%, p < .001) higher final Daily Activity score, and a 1.2-day (95% CI: -1.28 to -1.09, p < .001) lower hospital LOS. One-dimensional partial dependence plots revealed an exponential decrease in predicted LOS as minutes of PT-OT received increased. Conclusion: Higher rehabilitation minutes provided to patients in the ICU may reduce the LOS and improve patients' functional outcomes at discharge. The benefits of rehabilitation increased with increasing amounts of time of therapy received.