Physical therapy follow-up before and during COVID-19 pandemic of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Introduction: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is marked by a gradual decline in functional capacity and increased morbidity from respiratory infections due to progressive loss of muscle strength. The regular monitoring by a multidisciplinary team, adjustments in ventilatory parameters, and maintenance of NIV are essential for disease management. This study aimed to monitor functional progression of patients with ALS during COVID-19 pandemic using telemedicine. Method(s): This is longitudinal case series with patients with ALS. Five assessments were performed, being two occurred in-person and three were performed remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. First assessments included pulmonary function, respiratory muscle strength, functionality (ALSFRS-R), rate of disease progression, and disease staging. The further assessments included a clinical evaluation form, use and parameters of NIV. Result(s): We followed 11 patients for 30 months. Most patients had spinal onset ALS (72.7%), were male (72.7%), had a median age of 51 years. Total ALSFRS-R (P < 0.01) and motor domain (P < 0.01) scores reduced during the pandemic. However, total and domain scores were not different between patients with spinal and bulbar onset. According to ALSFRS-R, 90.9% of patients presented a slow disease progression. Most patients used NIV at night and during a half-day shift. Conclusion(s): The telemedicine facilitates monitoring clinical and seems to influence functional progression of patients with ALS during COVID-19 pandemic. Patients with ALS have a slow rate of disease progression and a functional decrease during 14 months follow-up period.

LEARNING AND COLLABORATIVE WORK THROUGH EMERGENCIAL REMOTE TEACHING (ERT): TRAINING TEACHING IN COVID-19 TIMES AT THE STATE OF RONDONIA

The present research investigated, from the perceptions of (denominated) articulating teachers of a continuing formative teacher process carried out in Rondonia State, by Emergency Remote Teaching, learnings, difficulties and the incidence of Collaborative Work (CW). The Vygotskian perspective on the importance of the other for learning process and the systematizations of CW by Costa and Damiani were adopted. The data, collected through online questionnaire and participant observation, analyzed through discursive textual analysis, suggest that: the most relevant learnings were those related to the use of technologies;the content about BNCC was also mentioned by them, but with less incidence;the main adversities pointed out were the precarious internet in the cities and the teachers difficulties on the use of emerging technologies;most of them (82%) answered that there were CW activities during the training, highlighting key-expressions such as: teamwork, mutual help, shared leadership, dialogue, exchange of experiences and collective learning.