COVID-19 recovery: benefits of multidisciplinary respiratory rehabilitation.

Many patients struggle with ongoing symptoms in different domains (physical, mental, cognitive) after hospitalisation for COVID-19, calling out for a multidisciplinary approach. An outpatient multidisciplinary rehabilitation programme, according to a respiratory rehabilitation strategy, was set up for adult patients who were able to attend group sessions during 12 weeks. Results of 22 adult patients with COVID-19, of which 15 had required intensive care, were analysed and some general impressions and challenges of rehabilitation in COVID-19 were reported. Impressive results on physical recovery were determined after 6 weeks and 3 months, with significant improvement of lung function, muscle force and exercise capacity variables. A positive evolution of mental and cognitive burden was present, although less pronounced than the physical recovery. These mental and cognitive consequences seem, next to musculoskeletal and medical complications, the most challenging aspect of rehabilitating patients with COVID-19. These real-world data show feasibility and efficiency of a multidisciplinary respiratory rehabilitation programme after moderate to severe COVID-19 disease.

Impact of COVID-19: urging a need for multi-domain assessment of COVID-19 inpatients.

OBJECTIVE: To retrospectively analyse data obtained from the multi-domain assessment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, to describe their health status at discharge, and to investigate whether subgroups of patients, more specific ICU patients and older adults (> 70 years), had more (or less) risk to experience specific impairments. METHODS: Retrospective case series in the University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium of confirmed COVID-19 patients 'after surviving an ICU-stay', 'aged ≥ 70 years', or 'aged < 70 years with a length of hospitalization > 7 days'. Exclusion criteria were 'unwilling to cooperate', 'medically unstable', or 'palliative care policy'. Following tests were used: 'Five Times Sit To Stand Test', 'hand grip dynamometry', 'Barthel index', 'Swallowing screening', 'Montreal Cognitive Assessment', 'Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale', and 'Nutritional Risk Screening 2002'. RESULTS: One or more tests were obtained in 135/163 patients (83.3%). Physical impairments were present in 43.2-82.8% of the patients. Median BI was 10/20 indicating limited self-dependency. Swallow impairments were present in 3/53 (5.7%) and 24/76 (31.6%) had risk of malnutrition. Impaired memory was seen in 26/43 (60.5%) and 22/47 (46.8%) had elevated anxiety/depression scores. Older adults had more physical, functional, and cognitive impairments. ICU patients had a lower hand grip force. CONCLUSION(S): The high prevalence of physical, cognitive, psychological, and functional impairments in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, both ICU and non-ICU patients, indicates that assessment of impairments is imperative. These results imply that rehabilitation and follow-up is essential for these patients. This paper proposes a short, workable assessment composed with known outcome measures to assess different domains of COVID-19 patients.