Cerfoglio Serena, Verme Federica, Capodaglio Paolo, Rossi Paolo, Cvetkova Viktoria, Boldini Gabriele, Galli Manuela, Cimolin Veronica
Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy.
Orthopaedic Rehabilitation Unit and Research Laboratory in Biomechanics, Rehabilitation and Ergonomics, San Giuseppe Hospital, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, 28824 Piancavallo, Italy.
Life (Basel). 2024 Jul 10;14(7):864. doi: 10.3390/life14070864.
The persistence of symptoms following COVID-19 infection represents a significant challenge in healthcare management. During the outbreak, tele-rehabilitation emerged as a new tool to support healthcare structures in providing rehabilitation services. This study assessed the effectiveness and the feasibility of a 3-week home-based motor and respiratory rehabilitation program for individuals with long COVID-19 after traditional rehabilitation. Twenty-three patients completed the program and underwent functional tests at different time points (i.e., baseline, at discharge from in-hospital rehabilitation and after tele-rehabilitation). Motor function was evaluated using the instrumented Six-Minutes Walking Test (i6MWT), with monitored heart rate and oxygen saturation. Additionally, respiratory function was measured via forced vital capacity (FVC) and maximal voluntary ventilation (MVV) tests. Significant improvements ( < 0.05) in motor and respiratory function were observed throughout the intervention, including an 18.3% increase in walked distance from the baseline. The findings suggest that the proposed home-based tele-rehabilitation shows potential in enhancing motor and respiratory function in patients with long COVID. Despite limitations such as the small sample size, lack of control group and the preliminary nature of the outcomes observed, the overall findings seem to support the feasibility of the proposed tele-rehabilitation program in managing long COVID symptoms and promoting functional recovery. Nevertheless, further research is needed to validate these findings and explore tele-rehabilitation's potential in broader and different patient populations.
新冠病毒感染后症状持续存在是医疗管理中的一项重大挑战。在疫情爆发期间，远程康复成为支持医疗机构提供康复服务的一种新工具。本研究评估了一项为期3周的居家运动和呼吸康复计划对新冠长期症状患者在接受传统康复治疗后的有效性和可行性。23名患者完成了该计划，并在不同时间点（即基线、住院康复出院时和远程康复后）接受了功能测试。使用仪器化六分钟步行测试（i6MWT）评估运动功能，同时监测心率和血氧饱和度。此外，通过用力肺活量（FVC）和最大自主通气量（MVV）测试来测量呼吸功能。在整个干预过程中，观察到运动和呼吸功能有显著改善（<0.05），包括步行距离较基线增加了18.3%。研究结果表明，所提出的居家远程康复在增强新冠长期症状患者的运动和呼吸功能方面显示出潜力。尽管存在样本量小、缺乏对照组以及观察结果的初步性质等局限性，但总体研究结果似乎支持所提出的远程康复计划在管理新冠长期症状和促进功能恢复方面的可行性。然而，需要进一步的研究来验证这些发现，并探索远程康复在更广泛和不同患者群体中的潜力。
