Trial reportThorax2018
Intensive versus standard physical rehabilitation therapy in the critically ill (EPICC): a multicentre, parallel-group, randomised controlled trial.
Trial report in Thorax, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 79 papers, 10 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
79 citing papers in PubMed, 10 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 206 citations in OpenAlex.
- Korean clinical practice guidelines for rehabilitation in critically ill patients and post-intensive care syndrome.Acute and critical care · 2026Guideline
- In-bed cycling for adult intensive care patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Systematic review and meta-analysis of physical rehabilitation on functional recovery in critically ill patients.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Reporting of nutritional screening, status, and intake in trials of nutritional and physical rehabilitation following critical illness: a systematic review.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2025Pooled it
- Guideline on positioning and early mobilisation in the critically ill by an expert panel.Intensive care medicine · 2024Guideline
- A systematic review and meta-analysis of the clinimetric properties of the core outcome measurement instruments for clinical effectiveness trials of nutritional and metabolic interventions in critical illness (CONCISE).Critical care (London, England) · 2023Pooled it
- Guideline on multimodal rehabilitation for patients with post-intensive care syndrome.Critical care (London, England) · 2023Guideline
- Pooled it
- Rehabilitation to enable recovery from COVID-19: a rapid systematic review.Physiotherapy · 2021Pooled it
- Six-Minute Walk Distance After Critical Illness: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of intensive care medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Characterizing usual-care physical rehabilitation in Canadian intensive care unit patients: a secondary analysis of the Canadian multicentre Critical Care Cycling to Improve Lower Extremity Strength pilot randomized controlled trial.Canadian journal of anaesthesia = Journal canadien d'anesthesie · 2024Trial
- Effect of early mobilisation on long-term cognitive impairment in critical illness in the USA: a randomised controlled trial.The Lancet. Respiratory medicine · 2023Trial
- Trial
- Nocturnal dexmedetomidine alleviates post-intensive care syndrome following cardiac surgery: a prospective randomized controlled clinical trial.BMC medicine · 2021Trial
- Trial
- Influence of the initial level of consciousness on early, goal-directed mobilization: a post hoc analysis.Intensive care medicine · 2019Trial
- Multicentre pilot randomised clinical trial of early in-bed cycle ergometry with ventilated patients.BMJ open respiratory research · 2019Trial
- Comparison of exercise intensity during four early rehabilitation techniques in sedated and ventilated patients in ICU: a randomised cross-over trial.Critical care (London, England) · 2018Trial
- ICEAGE (Incidence of Complications following Emergency Abdominal surgery: Get Exercising): study protocol of a pragmatic, multicentre, randomised controlled trial testing physiotherapy for the prevention of complications and improved physical recovery after emergency abdominal surgery.World journal of emergency surgery : WJES · 2018Trial
- Trial
19 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
19 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEarly physical rehabilitation in the intensive care unit (ICU) has been shown to improve short-term clinical outcomes but long-term benefit has not been proven and the optimum intensity of rehabilitation is not known.
methodsWe conducted a randomised, parallel-group, allocation-concealed, assessor-blinded, controlled trial in patients who had received at least 48 hours of invasive or non-invasive ventilation. Participants were randomised in a 1:1 ratio, stratified by admitting ICU, admission type and level of independence. The intervention group had a target of 90 min physical rehabilitation per day, the control group a target of 30 min per day (both Monday to Friday). The primary outcome was the Physical Component Summary (PCS) measure of SF-36 at 6 months.
resultsWe recruited 308 participants over 34 months: 150 assigned to the intervention and 158 to the control group. The intervention group received a median (IQR) of 161 (67-273) min of physical rehabilitation on ICU compared with 86 (31-139) min in the control group. At 6 months, 62 participants in the intervention group and 54 participants in the control group contributed primary outcome data. In the intervention group, 43 had died, 11 had withdrawn and 34 were lost to follow-up, while in the control group, 56 had died, 5 had withdrawn and 43 were lost to follow-up. There was no difference in the primary outcome at 6 months, mean (SD) PCS 37 (12.2) in the intervention group and 37 (11.3) in the control group.
conclusionsIn this study, ICU-based physical rehabilitation did not appear to improve physical outcomes at 6 months compared with standard physical rehabilitation. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ISRCTN 20436833.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.