Intensive care medicine experimental
August 24, 2026 · via Europe PMC
Effects of postural change and mobilization on hemoglobin levels in ICU patients: a prospective intervention study.
Slijkerman T, van den Oever HLA, Kamphorst K, de Kok JB, van Steveninck AL.
AI summary — for doctors, generated from the abstract only
In 23 stable, non-bleeding ICU patients, moving from supine to sitting and then to a chair produced modest but significant increases in measured hemoglobin.
What was studied
A single-center uncontrolled interventional study measuring arterial hemoglobin after prolonged bedrest, after passive sitting in bed, and after mobilization to a chair.
Key findings
- Baseline Hb from mixed model 11.1 g/dL
- Passive sitting increased Hb by 0.4 g/dL
- Further increase after chair mobilization: specific statistic not fully captured in the abstract
- Correlations with ESR, CRP and albumin: specific statistic not fully captured in the abstract
Clinical relevance
Patient posture at sampling may shift hemoglobin enough to matter near transfusion thresholds; the small uncontrolled study warrants confirmation.
Who should care
Limitations
Small, single-center, uncontrolled study; some results are truncated.
Posture can raise measured hemoglobin in ICU patients and may affect transfusion decisions near thresholds.
This is an AI-generated summary of the published abstract, not a clinical recommendation. It may not reflect the full text or subsequent updates — verify against the original source before acting on it.
Abstract
Background
In the absence of overt bleeding, a gradual decline in hemoglobin (Hb) levels is common following admission of patients to the Intensive Care (ICU). While effects of posture on measured Hb levels have been reported, knowledge about their occurrence and relevance in ICU patients is largely lacking. Such postural Hb changes are generally considered to result from plasma volume shifts. We studied the effects of passive and active postural changes on measured Hb values in hemodynamically stable, non-bleeding ICU patients.
Methods
In a single-center uncontrolled interventional study in hemodynamically stable adult ICU patients without evidence of bleeding, arterial Hb was measured after ≥ 6 h of supine bedrest, 30 min after a passive change to sitting in bed and subsequently after mobilizing patients to a chair. Baseline values for erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) and changes in serum albumin were recorded to explore potential correlations with Hb changes. The data was analyzed using linear mixed modelling.
Results
Twenty-three patients (median age 72 years, 57% male) were included in the study. The average baseline Hb obtained from the mixed model analysis was 11.1 g/dL (95% confidence interval (CI): 10.0-12.1 g/dL ). A passive change to a sitting position in bed resulted in an increase of 0.4 g/dL (95% CI: 0.2-0.5, p < 0.001), with a further increase of 0.5 g/dL (CI: 0.3-0.6, p < 0.001) after mobilization to a chair. There was a positive correlation between changes in Hb and albumin (supine to sitting in bed: Spearman ρ = 0.76, p < 0.001, supine to mobilized in a chair: Spearman ρ = 0.72, p < 0.001). No significant correlations were observed for Hb changes and ESR, or CRP.
Conclusions
In ICU patients, modest but significant increases in Hb values were demonstrated following a change from supine to a sitting position, with further increases upon mobilization to a chair. The observed postural Hb changes could affect transfusion decisions for Hb values near generally accepted transfusion thresholds.
DOI
10.1186/s40635-026-00961-x
PMID
42635892
PMCID
PMC13504036
Research metadata (titles, abstracts, authors, publication dates) is sourced from Europe PMC, which aggregates content from PubMed/MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and other providers under the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM/NCBI). NLM does not claim copyright on abstracts; the original journal publishers or authors may hold rights to the full articles. AI-generated summaries are derived only from the abstract, never the full text, and are always labeled as AI-generated.
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