Objective To investigate the application effect of early cardiac rehabilitation combined with progressive nursing in intensive care unit(ICU) nursing after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for acute myocardial infarction. Methods A total of 120 patients who were admitted to our hospital and underwent PCI for acute myocardial infarction from May 2022 to May 2023 were enrolled and divided into control group and observation group using a random number table, with 60 patients in each group. The patients in the control group were given routine nursing, and those in the observation group were given early cardiac rehabilitation combined with progressive nursing in addition to the nursing in the control group. The two groups were compared in terms of cardiac function parameters, number of adverse cardiovascular events, cardiac functional grading, coping style questionnaire (CSQ) score, mental stress reaction (SCL-90) score, and degree of satisfaction with nursing. Results After nursing, the observation group had significantly higher left ventricular ejection fraction and left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (P<0.05). Compared with the control group, the observation group had higher incidence rates of the adverse cardiovascular events such as sudden death, recurrent acute myocardial infarction, angina pectoris, severe arrhythmia, and heart failure (P>0.05). Compared with the control group, the observation group had significantly higher numbers of patients with grade I/II cardiac function and significantly lower numbers of patients with grade III/IV cardiac function (P<0.05). Compared with the control group, the observation group had a significantly higher CSQ score and a significantly lower SCL-90 score (P<0.05). The observation group had a significantly higher degree of satisfaction with nursing than the control group (P<0.05). Conclusion For patients withacute myocardial infarctionafter PCI, early cardiac rehabilitation combined with progressive nursing can effectively improve cardiac function, optimize cardiac functional grading, improve psychological state, and increase the degree of satisfaction with nursing. Although no statistical difference is observed for adverse cardiovascular events, such comprehensive nursing pattern can help to improve the overall rehabilitation quality of patients.