Critical care nurses use life-sustaining technology to help treat severely ill patients. They make up the majority of the medical profession from across China dispatched to central Hubei Province to help fight the coronavirus.

Medics from Peking Union Medical College Hospital have taken over an isolation area of Wuhan's Tongji Hospital where they treat Wuhan's worst COVID-19 infections.

Xia Ying, a medical intensive care unit head nurse of the medical team from Beijing, starts her day helping a patient with his physical exercise.

After two weeks of treatment, the once-severely ill patient has regained consciousness and is able to move.

Rehabilitation includes activities such as moving limbs, exercising and sitting on the edge of the bed.

Xia said they usually find patients' bodies are bent and stiff after they spend a long time lying in ICU. Their quality of life might be affected after they leave the hospital.

To help out, they get them started early with physical exercise.

Stays in intensive care units are usually accompanied by muscle weakness. Therefore, interventions that reduce muscle weakness and improve recovery after critical illness are needed.

Early mobilization, including physical exercise, is a complex intervention that requires careful patient assessment and management, as well as interdisciplinary team cooperation. 

Patients get easily tired during the exercises.

It's important to assess their body condition.

That is because medics can only conduct early physical therapy when patients have got stable life signs, said Wang Yu'e, a nurse from Peking Union Medical College Hospital.

The intensive care unit nurses give full attention to not only the physical but also the psychological conditions of patients.

Xia Ying said all nurses from the medical team talk to their patients when treating them, including those who have been sedated. They might not be able to hear, but Xia believes they can still "feel it."

Another job for Xia is to ensure the medical team remains free from infection. Among the 134 nurses on the medical team, more than 40 percent were born in the 1990s. They are passionate, energetic and fearless.

As a result, Xia Ying has to slow them down sometimes because they are too energetic, so much so that they become less careful in infection control. She has told them to stay calm and do things slowly and protect themselves carefully.

Even so, it's not difficult to see their passion. Paintings on protective gear and even poems have brought them strength to face life and death.