Department of Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC), 28922 Madrid, Spain.
Department of Neurology, Hospital Clínico San Carlos, 28040 Madrid, Spain.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Mar 5;18(5):2621. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18052621.
The pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has provoked a second pandemic, the "long-haulers", i.e., individuals presenting with post-COVID symptoms. We propose that to determine the presence of post-COVID symptoms, symptoms should appear after the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection; however, this situation has some problems due to the fact that not all people infected by SARS-CoV-2 receive such diagnosis. Based on relapsing/remitting nature of post-COVID symptoms, the following integrative classification is proposed: potentially infection related-symptoms (up to 4-5 weeks), acute post-COVID symptoms (from week 5 to week 12), long post-COVID symptoms (from week 12 to week 24), and persistent post-COVID symptoms (lasting more than 24 weeks). The most important topic is to establish the time reference points. The classification also integrates predisposing intrinsic and extrinsic factors and hospitalization data which could promote post-COVID symptoms. The plethora of symptoms affecting multiple systems exhibited by "long-haulers" suggests the presence of different underlying mechanisms.
2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行引发了第二次大流行，即“长期 COVID”患者，即出现 COVID 后症状的患者。我们提出，要确定是否存在 COVID 后症状，症状应该出现在 SARS-CoV-2 感染诊断之后；然而，由于并非所有感染 SARS-CoV-2 的人都接受了这种诊断，因此这种情况存在一些问题。基于 COVID 后症状的复发性/缓解性，提出了以下综合分类：可能与感染相关的症状（最多 4-5 周）、急性 COVID 后症状（第 5 周到第 12 周）、长期 COVID 后症状（第 12 周到第 24 周）和持续 COVID 后症状（持续超过 24 周）。最重要的是要确定时间参考点。该分类还整合了易患的内在和外在因素以及可能导致 COVID 后症状的住院数据。“长期 COVID”患者表现出的影响多个系统的大量症状表明存在不同的潜在机制。
