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The overall picture may be getting better in some ways for physical therapists working in hospital intensive care units (ICUs), but the results of a recent survey of PTs in this setting point to "pervasive" barriers to early ICU rehabilitation, according to the researchers who analyzed the results.
The survey aimed to capture a snapshot of staffing size, training, consultation criteria, and PTs' perceptions about rehabilitation in the ICU through a 65-item questionnaire sent to 2,320 members of the APTA Acute Care Section. Researchers received 554 usable surveys from 47 states and the District of Columbia. Of the respondents, 205 worked in academic hospitals and 349 worked in community hospitals. Results of the survey were e-published ahead of print in APTA's journal Physical Therapy (PTJ).1
Findings touched on several areas:
Staffing. The highest rate of staffing, expressed in terms of number of PTs per 100 ICU beds, was in community hospitals, with...