Long COVID rehab programs produce ‘impressive’ results – The Hill

Story outline

• Some people infected with COVID-19 may develop symptoms and health complications after they are no longer infected with the virus.

• This is called long-term COVID or post-COVID syndrome.

• A small group of people in a UK rehabilitation program were able to gradually increase physical activity and reduce long-term COVID symptoms over a period of 6 weeks.

A lengthy COVID-symptom rehabilitation program in the UK shows ‘impressive’ results, according to a new paper from Journal of Medical VirologyParticipants had fewer episodes of fatigue after six weeks of the program and showed a “moderate improvement” in their active and quality of life.

Rehabilitation programs focused specifically on gradual or paced increases in physical activity in COVID patients over time. This was part of a long-running COVID service at Leeds Community Health Care National Health Service Trust in the UK.

People with long-standing COVID, also known as post-COVID-19 syndrome, may experience symptoms for weeks to months after being infected with COVID-19. These include tiredness and tiredness that interfere with daily activities, fever, and difficulty breathing. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These symptoms can worsen after physical or mental exercise, also called “post-exercise fatigue.”

“As patients describe, post-exercise fatigue or worsening post-exercise symptoms, or simply ‘crashing,’ is a defining and important symptom of long-term COVID,” said Manoj Sivan, an associate clinical professor at the School of Medicine. led this research at the University of Leeds, press release“When patients have an accident, they experience utter exhaustion, swept away, and unable to resume activity for hours, sometimes days.”

Before starting the program, participants had COVID longer for an average of 17 months and experienced an average of 3 “crashes” per week.

Over a period of 6 weeks, 31 participants followed the World Health Organization (WHO) CR-10 Bogue pacing protocol, which included 5 levels of activity. This protocol assesses how active and at what level the patient is based on a scale of 0 to 10. where 0 is the lowest level of exercise and 10 is the highest. Various levels of activity are suggested, including breathing exercises, light walking, jogging, and resistance exercises. More demanding levels included activities such as running, swimming and dancing.

Level 5, with a score of 8 to 10 on the scale, represents the baseline level of activity at which participants are able to perform normal exercise and pre-COVID activities.

By the end of 6 weeks, the average number of crashes experienced by patients per week had increased from 3.4 to 1.1. The participant observed an average 16% reduction in such episodes each week and a reduction in her three types of exercise triggers: physical, cognitive, and emotional.

Shortness of breath, headache/migraine, and heart palpitations decreased most rapidly, decreasing by 20%, 21%, and 29%, respectively, each week.

Study administrators met participants during long COVID recovery periods and worked with them at a pace deemed necessary by the administrators in consultation. In a press release, medical practitioner and study participant Elizabeth Bycroft said, “We talked weekly with a longtime COVID support worker about her symptoms and how she would have felt if she had been holding out.” , I had the motivation to do more, but I kept it within limits, so the long COVID didn’t get worse.

Before the program Bycroft was crashing about 3 times a week. It dropped to one by the end of the program. While not fully back to baseline yet, he long feels he is now able to manage COVID. “A lot of people are very depressed because they can’t do the things they used to be able to do. .