The Frail Evidence Base for Early Rehabilitation

Cuthbertson discusses the study by Schweicker and colleagues on early rehabilitation strategies for the critically ill. The trial fails to show benefit for the primary outcome of maximal intensive care mobility, but it does show some effect on the secondary outcome of "standing before ICU discharge," and a secondary analysis showed that this was mediated by the number of days in which patients received physiotherapy. Safety outcomes such as death, unplanned extubation, and falls were not different between groups.