To explore the effectiveness of early rehabilitation physical therapy in patients with critical cerebrovascular disease based on propensity score matching.

A retrospective analysis was performed on clinical data from patients with critical cerebrovascular disease admitted to the Rehabilitation Medicine Department of West China Hospital of Sichuan University from 2011 to 2019. According to whether early rehabilitation physical therapy was administered during the intensive care unit (ICU) stay, patients were divided into an early rehabilitation physical therapy group and a non-early rehabilitation physical therapy group. Propensity score matching (1∶1, caliper 0.02) was used to balance baseline differences. Linear regression or quantile regression was used to compare ICU length of stay and final GCS scores between the groups, while binary logistic regression was used to analyze differences in discharge outcomes. Multivariate Logistic regression was performed to assess the independent impact on discharge outcomes.

A total of 1211 patients were included, of which 474 (39.1%) received early rehabilitation physical treatment and the remaining 737 did not receive early rehabilitation physical therapy. After propensity score matching, there were 390 cases in each of the two groups, and the baseline characteristics between the two groups were balanced and comparable. There were no statistically significant differences in ICU length of stay or GCS scores between the matched groups (P>0.05). The incidence of favorable outcomes in the early rehabilitation physical therapy group was 67.4%, which was significantly higher than that in the non-early rehabilitation group (49.5%) (P<0.05). Multivariate Logistic analysis showed that not receiving rehabilitation therapy, cerebral infarction with hemorrhage, and infection were independent risk factors for unfavorable outcomes, while cranial surgery was identified as an independent protective factor.

Early rehabilitation physical therapy significantly increased the likelihood of achieving a favorable outcome at discharge in patients with critical cerebrovascular disease and has important clinical value in improving patient outcomes.