Kazal Louis A, Huyck Karen L, Kelly Brendan
Professor, Department of Community and Family Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire.
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire.
Integr Med (Encinitas). 2025 Apr;24(2):16-24.
Long COVID remains a significant burden for patients, clinicians, employers, and the U.S. healthcare system. Despite substantial resources and scientific studies directed at understanding and treating long COVID, its cause, and thus targeted treatment remains elusive. Conventional medicine focuses on symptom evaluation to rule out other etiologies. Intervention typically offers the patient current understanding and education and provides reassurance and context for their symptoms. Treatment is mostly supportive care directed at symptom management to improve quality of life, including occupational and physical therapy, breathing exercises, pulmonary rehabilitation, and mental health therapy. Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM) can help make sense of an individual's response to COVID-19 infection, as each pathophysiological change caused by COVID can be correlated with CCM principles, therefore a corresponding treatment approach is available.
A case series of four representative patients with long COVID treated with CCM is presented. Symptom complex, CCM diagnoses and treatment, and response to treatment are provided for each case, and the rationale for the selected therapy approach is explained.
All four patients recovered fully from long COVID after treatment with CCM therapy. These cases are representative of 56 patients successfully treated thus far with CCM for long COVID.
There is no single treatment for long COVID in Western or Chinese medicine. Western medical treatment centers around reassurance and supportive care, whereas CCM treatment can be more directly targeted and individualized to underlying causes and increase the probability of recovery. These cases indicate the potential of CCM for treating long COVID. However, more research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach to long COVID recovery.
长期新冠对患者、临床医生、雇主和美国医疗系统而言仍是一项重大负担。尽管投入了大量资源并开展了科学研究来了解和治疗长期新冠，但它的病因以及针对性治疗方法仍不明确。传统医学侧重于症状评估以排除其他病因。干预措施通常是向患者提供当前的认知和教育，并为其症状提供安慰和相关背景信息。治疗大多是针对症状管理的支持性护理，以提高生活质量，包括职业和物理治疗、呼吸练习、肺康复以及心理健康治疗。中医能够帮助理解个体对新冠病毒感染的反应，因为新冠引发的每一种病理生理变化都可以与中医理论相关联，因此可以采用相应的治疗方法。
本文介绍了一系列采用中医治疗的4例具有代表性的长期新冠患者病例。阐述了每个病例的症状组合、中医诊断与治疗以及治疗反应，并解释了所选治疗方法的依据。
4例患者经中医治疗后均从长期新冠中完全康复。这些病例代表了迄今为止56例采用中医成功治疗的长期新冠患者。
西医和中医都没有针对长期新冠的单一治疗方法。西医治疗主要围绕安慰和支持性护理，而中医治疗可以更直接地针对潜在病因并实现个体化，从而提高康复的可能性。这些病例表明了中医治疗长期新冠的潜力。然而，需要更多研究来评估这种方法对长期新冠康复的有效性。
