126 Background: Critical illness associated with immobility leads to significant morbidity including increased intensive care unit (ICU) days, hospital lengths of stay (LOS), and prolonged deconditioning. Several prior studies have demonstrated improvements in LOS and ventilator days when early institution of mobility programs are utilized; however, malignancy and a short expected life span have been exclusions from all prior studies. The purpose of this retrospective investigation was to examine the safety and effectiveness of a progressive upright mobility program (PUM) in critically ill ventilated cancer patients. Methods: After twelve months of baseline data was collected investigating ventilator days, ICU LOS and hospital LOS, a stepwise multidisciplinary PUM protocol was developed and followed in all mechanically ventilated patients admitted to a single subspecialty cancer hospital ICU. Exclusions to protocol included hemodynamic instability, the need for continuous sedation, and neuromuscular blockade. Data from control period (pre) was compared to twelve-month post-intervention (post) data. To determine sustainability, an additional twelve months of data was collected and compared to the pre and post intervention groups. Compared data included demographics, severity of illness, ventilator days, and LOS. Results: Statistical analysis of the data included comparison of means and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The post protocol implementation group demonstrated statistically significant outcomes in the three areas measured; ventilator days reduced from 6.3 to 3.7 (p = 0.001755), ICU LOS 10.2 to 7.5 (p = 0.011016), and hospital LOS 20.9 to 14.1 (p = 0.000364). Conclusions: Despite oncology patients having a high severity of illness and likely functional decline, the patients continue to benefit from early mobilization as previously studied groups. The results reflect consistencies with current literature supporting the absence of complications in early mobilization of patients in the ICU. To our knowledge, this has been the first mobilization study conducted in an oncology critical care setting.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.