COVID-19 long-haul carriers need holistic treatment, providers say

According to health care providers, interdisciplinary teams are perfect for fighting long-term COVID-19 illness.

COVID-19 (new coronavirus infection) (# If there is no character limit, add parentheses when it first appears It can swell organs, damage tissues, and cause prolonged symptoms such as shortness of breath, malaise, and loss of smell.A team of researchers based in the UK Estimated Approximately 10% of COVID-19 patients are “long-haul carriers”, but others the study It was found that up to three-quarters of COVID-19 patients experience at least one long-term effect.

One patient British researchers It took eight weeks to begin to approach his normal self, “the day was so tired that I had to sleep, akinesia, shortness of breath both when I was immobile and when I was exercising, a small wave of anxiety, and considerable depression. , Continuous loss of odor — symptoms with no history. “

Dr. Jossary, a pulmonologist at the New Arcves Israel Medical Center, says the provider is still working on why the immune response to COVID-19 persists in some patients, but permanent lung scars, It states that it can lead to blood clots, heart failure and mental illness. .. He said long-term symptoms could affect all COVID-19 patients, even if the cases were relatively mild.

“Post-COVID syndrome affects the whole body and is an approach that must be taken when caring for these patients,” Lee said in a webinar late Tuesday, physiotherapy, dietary supplements, and pulmonary rehabilitation for patients. He added that it would be useful for recovery. Strength and lung function. “It’s important to take care of your body and symptoms as a whole team, not just see a pulmonologist or cardiologist. A collaborative approach should be standard care.”

According to the provider, it is difficult to determine how widespread the post-COVID syndrome is, so we are looking at several studies with different estimates. Approximately one-third of 488 COVID-19 patients showed prolonged symptoms 60 days after being released from a Michigan hospital. The most common are shortness of breath, coughing, and loss of odor.According to, almost 19% showed new or worse symptoms Observational study It was published in the annual report of internal medicine.

Dr. Jesus Gomez Abraham, Deputy Director of Lung Transplantation at NewArc, said, “Patients with mild symptoms may develop progressive lung damage, and weakness and malaise may recur, leading to lung failure. It’s not uncommon to have. ”

Of the 1,648 COVID-19 patients admitted to these hospitals, 398 died during hospitalization and an additional 84 died within 60 days of discharge, according to a Michigan study. This corresponds to a mortality rate of 29.2%.

“Approximately one-third of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 have evidence of heart damage on blood tests,” said cardiologist Dr. Peter Libby. Brigham and Women’s Hospital Those who were not involved in the study. Libby recently paper The European Heart Journal associates COVID-19 complications with changes in endothelial function.

According to an informal search, Facebook has more than 60,000 members of the long-distance COVID support group. One member recently posted that he had no worst symptoms when he was infected with the virus, but has had repeated acute and mild long-term symptoms over the past year.

“I’m getting better. I hiked about two miles a day with my dog. And now it’s getting worse. I’m very tired every day and I have almost no loss of appetite or dry cough all day long. I’ve been in bed all week and have friends. I took my dog ​​this week because I was too weak, “they wrote.

Little is known about COVID, so patients can follow up with their doctors, pulmonary hypertension and rehabilitation specialists, cardiologists, physiotherapists, and nutritionists in the field, such as NewArc. It is important. , Newark Quality Medical Director.

“We have seen patients in the clinic who have mild COVID symptoms and who are COVID negative but continue to progress and become more and more short of breath over time,” she said. “The protracted effect is just something we don’t know about.”