Rocking the Cure: Motion Therapy Speeds Healing in Critical Patients, Study Finds

Treating critically ill patients with a gentle rocking motion could significantly reduce the time they spend in intensive care units, a study has found.

The movement--or kinetic--therapy uses specially designed beds to keep patients in constant motion, said Dr. Sung C. Choi, professor of biostatistics and neurosurgery at the Medical College of Virginia.

The movement helps reduce the risk of infection and complications from pneumonia and other respiratory problems, which affect about 20% of intensive care patients, he said.

“Kinetic therapy can reduce ICU days by 24%,” said Choi, co-author of the study with Dr. Loren D. Nelson, associate professor of surgery and anesthesiology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

The researchers compared results of six independent studies on kinetic therapy involving 419 patients over four years. Their work, which was not funded by outside sources, was published in the Journal of Critical Care.

Nelson said statistical analysis of the studies shows that at least 250,000 intensive care patients in the United States each year suffer from problems that could be helped by kinetic therapy.

“The average duration of the stay for ICU patients, those who got traditional care, was a little over 12 days,” he said. “Those randomly assigned to this treatment, their ICU stay was reduced by three days.”

The average daily cost for an ICU patient is $1,700 to $3,000, according to the American Hospital Assn. and a recent study in Chest, a journal on pulmonary medicine.

The potential savings in intensive care costs would be nearly $1.3 billion a year, based on 250,000 patients saving $1,700 a day for three fewer days in intensive care, Nelson said.

Kinetic therapy has been used primarily in intensive care since its introduction in this country in 1975. But its use is increasing for immobilized patients who are out of intensive care, the researchers said.

“We know the number of patients who are at risk who should benefit,” Nelson said. “We don’t know how many of those are actually getting the bed right now. My guess is a tiny fraction of the 250,000 are getting that treatment.”

The special beds swing a patient automatically from side to side. Each cycle lasts about seven minutes.

Even under the best conventional care, a nurse turns a patient once every two hours, Choi said.

Scott J. Ratner, a cardiologist, said he has used kinetic therapy on patients at the Heart Institute of St. Francis Hospital in Rosslyn, N.Y., and at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was director of intensive care.

“It’s probably beneficial,” Ratner said. “It’s certainly more comfortable. It probably reduces complications. But it’s not a substitute for nursing or comprehensive medical care.”

Not every ICU patient needs kinetic therapy, but patients immobilized by injury or illness are good candidates, the researchers said.

“In all of these patient groups, it appeared to have benefits of reducing pneumonia and other respiratory complications,” Nelson said.

The researchers said the studies showed that kinetic therapy cut in half the number of intensive care patients who got pneumonia.