Safety of Early Postoperative Range of Motion in Burn Patients With Newly Placed Hand Autografts: A Pilot Study.

Patients who suffer hand burns are at a high contracture risk, partly due to numerous cutaneous functional units, or contracture risk areas, located within the hand. Patients who undergo split-thickness skin grafting are often immobilized postoperatively for graft protection. Recent practice at our burn center includes an early range of motion (EROM) following hand grafting to limit unnecessary immobilization. The purpose of this study was to determine whether EROM is safe to perform after hand grafting and if there is any clinical benefit. This retrospective, matched case-control study of adults compared patients who received EROM to subjects who received the standard 3 to 5 days of postoperative immobilization. Patients were evaluated for graft loss and range of motion. Seventy-one patients were included in this study: 37 EROM patients and 34 matched controls. Six patients experienced minor graft loss, three of these were not attributable to EROM. All graft loss was less than 1 cm and none required additional surgery. Significantly more patients who received EROM achieved full-digital flexion by the first outpatient visit (25/27 = 92.6% vs 15/22 = 68.2%; P = .028). Performing EROM does not cause an increase in graft loss. All areas of graft loss from the EROM group healed without intervention. There appears to be a benefit to EROM since there was a significant improvement in the patients' ability to make a full fist at initial outpatient follow-up. Additional prospective analysis is needed to examine the true clinical utility of EROM in the hand and other contracture-prone areas.

The Interplay of Nutrition, Physical Activity, Severity of Illness, and Mortality in Critically Ill Burn Patients: Is There a Connection?

The purpose of this project was to evaluate the relationships between nutrition, physical activity levels (PALs), severity of illness (SOI), and survival in critically ill burn patients. We conducted a retrospective evaluation of consecutively admitted adult patients who had an intensive care unit stay ≥8 days after ≥20% TBSA burns. Linear regression was used to assess the association between SOI (sequential organ failure assessment scores) and PALs as well as between SOI and nutritional intake. After univariate analysis comparing survivors and nonsurvivors, factors with P < .10 were analyzed with multiple logistic regression. Characteristics of the 45 included patients were: 42 ± 15 years old, 37 ± 17% TBSA burns, 22% mortality. Factors independently associated with survival were burn size (negatively) (P = .018), height (positively) (P = .006), highest PAL during the first eight intensive care unit days (positively) (P = .016), and kcal balance during the fifth through the eighth intensive care unit days (positively) (P = .012). Sequential organ failure assessment scores had a significant (P < .001) but weak association with nutrition intake (R2 = 0.05) and PALs (R2 = 0.25). Higher nutritional intake and activity were significantly associated with lower mortality in critically ill burn patients. Given the weak associations between both nutritional intake and PALs with SOI, the primary barrier in achieving nutrition and activity goals was not SOI. We recommend that physical rehabilitation and nutritional intake be optimized in an effort to improve outcomes in critically ill burn patients.