What if keeping critically ill patients awake, upright and moving could completely change their recovery? In this episode of the Martina Tierney Podcast, I’m joined by Kali Dayton, a nurse practitioner, critical care consultant and host of Walking Home From The ICU, along with my son Jonathan Tierney.

Kali shares how her early experience in an ICU where intubated patients were routinely awake, communicating and even walking challenged everything she later encountered in more traditional critical care settings.

We explore the long-held practice of sedation and bed rest in ICU care, the impact this can have on muscle strength, cognition and recovery, and why enhanced mobilisation should become part of the standard of care.

We also discuss the importance of getting patients upright and out of bed as early as safely possible, the role of appropriate seating between periods of mobility, and how fear, culture and established routines can sometimes become barriers to change.

This is a fascinating conversation about questioning what has become “normal” in healthcare, challenging outdated practices and looking at how small changes in care can have a profound impact on a patient’s dignity, independence and long-term quality of life.

If you work in critical care, rehabilitation, nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy or patient mobility, this is an episode that will make you think differently about what recovery can look like.