The effect of physiotherapy treatment on oxygen consumption and haemodynamics in patients who are critically ill

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine metabolic and haemodynamic changes with and without physiotherapy treatment in haemodynamically stable, intubated and ventilated patients. This was a prospective, randomised cross-over study. Ten intubated, ventilated and haemodynamically stable patients underwent a 20 min physiotherapy treatment and a 20 min period of undisturbed side lying. Mean oxygen consumption (VO2mean) was measured on a minute-to-minute basis by indirect calorimetry. Mean arterial pressure (MAP) was recorded minutely from the indwelling arterial line and cardiac index (CI) was calculated from the indwelling pulmonary artery catheter. Time to recovery to within 5% of resting V..