Impact of Graded Passive Cycling on Hemodynamics, Cerebral Blood Flow, and Heart Function in Healthy Adults and Septic ICU Patients
Abstract
Sepsis is a life-threatening dysregulation of host response to an infectious insult, which often leads to multi-organ failure. Sepsis survivors suffer from post-intensive care syndrome in part due to their prolonged bed rest and lack of mobility. Although early mobilization has been championed as a mechanism to counter the adverse effects associated with ICU immobility, due to sedation and mechanical ventilation, active early mobilization is not often administered in septic patients due to worries of hemodynamic instability and potential for inducing adverse events. Passive exercise is a mobilization modality that circumvents the need for patients to be conscious and participatory in their mobilization sessions, and thus allows for mobilization of critically ill patients during the acute stages of their ICU stay.
This thesis addresses the safety and feasibility of a graded passive mobilization procedure in septic patients to better understand the effects that passive cycling intensity has on patient hemodynamic status, along with organ perfusion status in key organ systems that are at risk of organ dysfunction as a result of the systemic effects of sepsis.