In the era of long COVID, can we seek new techniques for better rehabilitation?, 2022, He and Yang

Since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has become a pandemic, medical staff and researchers have devotedly managed the disease in terms of pathogens, prevention, and treatment. Even so, the virus continues to wreak havoc in people's lives. Recent evidence shows that patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 show distinct symptoms ranging from asymptomatic or mild infection to fatal disease. Moreover, this virus not only provokes an acute inflammatory response but could also cause a range of persistent symptoms after the phase of acute infection. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence defines this phenomenon as long COVID.1 Currently, there is no definite definition of long COVID. However, the basic argument, that patients who have recovered from acute infection present with persistent symptoms that cannot be explained by another diagnosis beyond 3–4 weeks postinfection, remains the same. Academic publications have estimated that 10%–20% of patients with COVID-19 have some complaints after COVID-19.2

Most patients with COVID-19 present with respiratory dysfunction, fatigue, and psychological disorders during and after acute infection, and their lives are greatly affected. Under this circumstance, pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) has become a powerful weapon to deal with those symptoms in the context of quantities of evidence of its efficiency.3 However, restricting quarantine to minimize viral spread may limit the utility of conventional PR programs. Thus, new techniques and innovative programs or approaches must be discussed and estimated. In this case, we could obtain a more comprehensive and critical perspective on the frontiers of medicine.

Open access, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cdt3.42

 

I think the benefit of pulmonary rehabilitation is LongCovid is largely overstated and mostly pushed by people who don't understand the range of symptoms and their causation.

 

People benefiting from "pulmonary rehabilitation" after covid must have had very different chest problems than I did. The phrase makes me shudder. This would have made me so much worse and I had to stop seeing the specialist, who kept pushing forms of exercise despite that. I realized that pulmonary rehab was some kind of a touchstone/dogma for such specialists and there was no point in pursuing the matter.

My chest symptoms have improved over the two and a half years. Inhalers and steroids helped. I am glad I knew to steer clear of being told that activity/exercise or "rehab" would magically cure me when I stated it was making me worse.

I truly wince thinking about all of the ill people who have been wrongly pushed into "rehab" without realizing it was making them deteriorate.