A 3 months follow-up of functional dependency, muscle strength, balance and endurance in long-stay icu patients; association with rehabilitation programmes

Methods We performed a single centre prospective observational study in mixed ICU patients with a length of stay ICU > 48 hours. Patients were evaluated at ICU discharge and reevaluated after a 3-months period in a specific post-ICU outpatient clinic. At both time points a Barthel score (BS) and grip strength (GS) were recorded. Additionally the 6 minutes walking test (6MWT), the Berg balance scale (BBS) and characteristics of individual rehabilitation programmes were assessed in the outpatient setting. Nonparametric tests for comparison between dependent and independent datasets were used. A Bonferroni correction was used for multiple comparison.