The term “post-intensive care syndrome” generally is used to describe residual impairments experienced by survivors of critical illness. These are impairments that impact cognitive, psychological and physical functions and that eventually affect activities of daily living and decrease the patients’ quality of life.  
This newly published Cochrane Review summarizes the current evidence on the efficacy and safety of early intervention, including mobilization and/or active exercise, on the aftereffectsof critical illness.
Reports of four randomized controlled trials, including 690 participants, were retrieved. The evidence from the trials was considered to be of low quality because blinding was not possible and because of imprecision or attrition biases. Early intervention was considered beneficial for return to functional independence and increase in walking distance after hospital discharge, and the trials reported low rates of adverse events.
The reviewed trials reported a wide variety in type, timing, intensity and progression of interventions delivered to critically ill patients. For this reason, and due to the low quality of the evidence, we believe that future, well-conducted research might either strengthen or change the results.