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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.

Today, I want to talk about a marathon. Now you might wonder what does that have to do with intensive care? Well, I’ll tell you it has anything to do with intensive care.

So, many families in intensive care come to us and they want to know how can they help getting their loved ones off the ventilator. And my first question to them is, are they getting mobilized? Are they getting out of bed? Are they getting physical therapy?

And a lot of families are telling us that they’re either not getting enough physical therapy and not enough mobilization, or they’re not getting it at all. And whether your loved one is in intensive care or for our US audience, in LTAC, no matter what the situation is, if your loved one needs to come off the ventilator, they need to get mobilized.

So think about it. If you want to run a marathon, you need to train for it. You need to train for it diligently. You need to train for it almost every day. You need to train for it with a nutrition plan, with a sleep plan, really with a tight schedule, that’s not only focused around running a marathon.

So it’s the same when someone is in intensive care or in LTAC needing to come off the ventilator that needs to work around the schedule. It needs to work around mobilization, which is pretty much similar to running a marathon because patients in intensive care are deconditioned. And for them to get off a ventilator, they need to start getting mobilized, need to start getting physical therapy every day without fail.

I have not seen in over 20 years of intensive care nursing where I worked in three different countries and where I literally looked after thousands of critically ill patients and their families. I just haven’t seen someone coming off the ventilator without getting mobilized without getting physical therapy regularly.

So, you need to keep asking for it. And today, I actually spoke to two of my clients and they were telling me, they literally pushed and forced the ICU to start physical therapy on their loved ones, and lo and behold, they are now slowly but surely coming off the ventilator.

So if your loved one can’t come off the ventilator. They’re probably not getting mobilized. They’re not getting physical therapy. They’re not getting pushed towards that every day. Every day, step-by-step, often very small steps. But you got to keep looking for the small steps that your loved one is taking as well. And most importantly, stay positive, do not give up.

And if you have a loved one in intensive care and you need help and you probably do because you don’t know what you don’t know. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website at intensivecarehotline.com and read our case studies.

But the shortcut really is to talk to myself or one of our experts here at intensivecarehotline.com. We can help you at lightning speed because you don’t know what you don’t know.

Like this video, comment down below what you want to see next and subscribe to my YouTube channel for updates for families in intensive care.

This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com and I’ll talk to you in a few days.