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Pediatric Rehabilitation

Assessment of Rehabilitation Needs and Utilization Following Pediatric Cardiac Arrest

Saturday, October 25, 2025
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM MT
Location: Kiosk 7
Disclosure(s):
Paige M. Haenni, MD: No financial relationships to disclose
Nathan K. Evanson, MD, PhD: No financial relationships to disclose
Caitlin Chicoine, MD: No financial relationships to disclose
Background and/or Objectives: To determine whether pediatric patients who have experienced cardiac arrest (CA) receive rehabilitation services during or after initial hospitalization, to identify specific patient- or CA-related factors that increase the need for rehabilitation services, and to predict which post-CA patients might benefit from pediatric rehabilitation medicine (PRM) involvement

Design: Retrospective cohort study

Setting : Quaternary care free-standing pediatric hospital

Participants : 114 patients aged 0 to 21 years admitted to pediatric intensive care unit who experienced CA between July 1st 2019 and June 30th, 2024

Interventions: Not applicable

Main Outcome Measures: Outcome measures include PRM consult, inpatient rehabilitation admission, PT, OT, or SLP consults and their discharge recommendations, and identification of new equipment needs. We compared CA factors and outcome measures based on presence of PRM consult to characterize generalized patterns of use, then stratified comparisons by age group to further delineate involvement. Comparisons were assessed using Wilcoxon rank-sum test and Chi-square/Fisher's exact test for continuous and categorical variables, respectively.

Results: Among CA survivors, 49% received an inpatient PRM consultation during initial hospitalization, 14.3% were admitted to inpatient rehabilitation, and 41.7% were seen after discharge in PRM clinic. Of those who received PT, OT, or SLP consults, 73.5%, 71.4%, and 63.3% were recommended for outpatient therapies, respectively. Of the 63.3% with post-CA brain imaging, 83.9% had new abnormal findings and 19 of those received PRM consult while 7 did not. No difference was identified in median age, gender, CA location, CPR duration, or in presence of premorbid subspecialty involvement, therapy needs, or functional impairments between those who received a PRM consult and those who did not.

Conclusions: There is variability in the need for, and utilization of, PRM consultations following pediatric CA. Findings suggest an unrecognized patient subset for whom PRM involvement would be beneficial, and future steps may include the development of a predictive tool to improve consistency in utilization.