Abstract
Neurological and neurosurgical early rehabilitation patients are often so critically ill that they must be weaned from mechanical ventilation in addition to early rehabilitative treatment. The German Society for Neurorehabilitation (DGNR) carried out a survey and asked neurological weaning units to provide information on structural characteristics of the facility, including personnel and technical resources and the number of cases and outcome based on anonymous data. In total 36 weaning units from 11 federal states with a total of 496 beds participated in the survey. From 2516 weaning cases documented in 2019, 2097 (83.3%) could primarily be successfully weaned from mechanical ventilation and only 120 (4.8%) had to be discharged with home ventilation. The mortality in this sample was 11.0% (n = 276). The results of the survey demonstrate that prolonged weaning during early neurological and neurosurgical rehabilitation is an important and effective component of healthcare provision for critically ill patients in Germany.