The research unit at Remeo focuses on improving the care for patients with chronic or persistent critical illness.

These patients need intensive care treatment for long periods of time and may suffer from a wide array of diseases, requiring individualized, multidisciplinary care and rehabilitation during their recovery period. Our research goal is to improve the understanding of chronic/persistent critical illness with the aim to support recovery in the best possible way.

Ongoing studies

Recovery and rehabilitation in chronic critical illness

PhD-student Jenny Petersson: Five to ten percent of patients in need of intensive care will suffer from chronic critical illness. The slow recovery experienced by these patients leads to long stays in the intensive care unit (ICU) and it is estimated that 30-50% of beds and resources are used for this patient group. Though outcomes have frequently been reported to be poor, specialized centers in several countries, for example weaning units, have recently presented better results. Click here for further details

Swallowing Dysfunction after Intensive Care

Swallowing difficulties (also termed ‘dysphagia’) can be a significant and negative side-effect for people who have been in intensive care for a prolonged time (i.e., more 7-10 days) [1, 2]. These patients often have a range of ongoing medical, physical, cognitive and psychological difficulties (persistent/chronic critical illness) and require specialized multidisciplinary rehabilitation, where dysphagia treatment is considered an essential aspect [1-3]. Click here for further details

Outcome of patients treated at a specialized multidisciplinary rehabilitation clinic following prolonged intensive care

This study is based on data from the Remeo quality registry and includes patients treated at Remeo 2015-2018. Success rates of weaning from mechanical ventilation and tracheostomy will be analyzed as well as discharge destinations, two-year survival rates after discharge, and more.

Specialized care and patient related outcome measures in persistent critical illness

This is a prospective study with ongoing patient inclusion. We aim to document patient and treatment characteristics as well as outcomes from the multidisciplinary rehabilitation using validated instruments for physical testing and patient reported outcome measures.

Prevalence and characteristics of dysphagia following prolonged intensive care and rehabilitation at Remeo

This study aims to describe and characterise dysphagia in patients who have experienced a prolonged period of intensive care using retrospective swallowing assessment data from patients routinely treated for dysphagia at Remeo.

Dysphagia scales: translation and evaluation of validity and reliability

Dysphagia scales commonly used internationally (valid and reliable in the English language) are translated into Swedish and validated for clinical and scientific use in Swedish healthcare and research.