For years it has been known that many patients who survive critical illness do not return to their original state of health, resulting in long-term consequences of critical illness. Weakness acquired in the intensive care unit (ICU) is a physical consequence occurring in 25% to 80% of patients who receive mechanical ventilation for more than 4 days and in 50% to 75% of patients with sepsis. Nearly all patients affected with ICU-acquired weakness have symptoms that persist years later. Issues with cognitive function occur in 30% to 80% of ICU survivors and include memory, planning, problem-solving, visual-spatial, and processing problems.

Patients who survive long stays in the intensive care unit (ICU), such as those who receive prolonged mechanical ventilation, will most often require continued assistance from a caregiver more than a year after ICU discharge. The effects of this responsibility on the family caregivers are not well known but may include such negative consequences as poor health-related quality of life, emotional distress, a subjective sense of burden, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder.

A series of evidence-based interventions beginning with an intensive care unit diary and a patient/family educational pamphlet were implemented to address the long-term consequences of critical illness after discharge from the intensive care unit, bundled as post–intensive care syndrome and post–intensive care syndrome–family