Abstract
Early ambulation is now recognised as an intervention that confers many positive benefits to patients following cardiac surgery. However, there is lack of clarity as to the optimum time for the patient to perform early ambulation. A focused question was developed to ascertain whether early ambulation within 24 hours after extubation is more effective compared to ambulation 24 hours or more following extubation. The clinical question guided the search and retrieval of 6 studies that were subsequently appraised. There are benefits and many limitations of the chosen studies and do not provide sufficient evidence to answer the clinical question ...