In the past 3 decades, intensive care unit (ICU) mortality has decreased by more than 30%. Nonetheless, outcomes among critical illness survivors elicit reasonable concern; a growing body of evidence has described an assortment of debilitating cognitive, functional, and psychological symptoms, known as post-ICU syndrome (PICS). The majority of clinical interventions designed to prevent PICS are initiated during the patient’s ICU stay and focus on the bundling of evidence-based practice strategies. However, survivors of critical illness spend the majority of their hospitalization recovering from their ICU stay in acute medical care units before discharge. This period, called early ICU aftercare, is relatively understudied. Existing evidence describes the use of high-risk medications, maintenance of invasive devices with weak clinical justification, delirium, and functional decline. Given that most prior work has been focused on the posthospital period of ICU survivors, the potential benefit of implementing early ICU aftercare interventions is unclear....

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