Episode #11: Rehabilitate Rehabilitation

When we roll our patients out with tracheostomies, PEG tubes, and new physical deconditioning from weeks of bedrest, what are we anticipating for our survivors? What is rehabilitation really like?

Susi Rimkus, DNP, shares with us her experiences in the awake and walking ICU. She attempted to bring the same awake and walking culture an LTAC but found the same barriers that our critical care world faces. Sedation, delirium, and immobility continue to plague our patients.

Susi continued to be determined to get patients back to their lives after ICU-acquired weakness. She tells her story of how she came to start respiratory units in skilled nursing facility and defied tracheostomy de-cannulation rates from 13.4% to 50–60%. By bringing the awake and walking culture from the ICU to rehabilitation, she gave people their lives back.