Early rehabilitation for critically ill adult patients: protocol for an umbrella review.
Kun Sun, Yongming Tian, Yuanyuan Song, Biantong Jiang, Huan Liu, Aiping Du
PMID 42558522WHAT IT FOUND
This is a plan for a future review, not a completed study.
It contains no findings about whether early rehabilitation helps or harms ICU patients. Nothing here changes what you do on Monday.
What this paper is
This is a protocol for a planned umbrella review of early rehabilitation in critically ill adults. It describes the intended search strategy, inclusion criteria, quality-appraisal methods, and analysis plan, but contains no results, no findings, and no evidence about the effectiveness or safety of early rehabilitation. There is nothing to report that could inform clinical decision-making.
Declared interests
Funded by the Sichuan Provincial Department of Science and Technology (Grant No. 2024YFFK0262, 'Construction and effectiveness evaluation of a precise early rehabilitation decision-making system for critically ill patients based on ultrasound visualization technology'). The funder had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or manuscript writing.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the introduction's statements that early rehabilitation 'can improve physical function, reduce delirium duration, shorten mechanical ventilation time and ICU length of stay, and enhance long-term quality of life' as findings of this paper. This is a protocol, a plan for a future review, and reports no results. Those sentences cite other studies as background; they are not evidence generated here.