TY - JOUR
T1 - Effectiveness of a primary care telerehabilitation program for post-covid-19 patients
T2 - A feasibility study
AU - Dalbosco-Salas, Marcelo
AU - Torres-Castro, Rodrigo
AU - Leyton, Andrés Rojas
AU - Zapata, Franco Morales
AU - Salazar, Elisabeth Henríquez
AU - Bastías, Gabriel Espinoza
AU - Díaz, María Elizabeth Beltrán
AU - Allers, Kris Tapia
AU - Fonseca, Daniela Mornhinweg
AU - Vilaró, Jordi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article.
PY - 2021/10/1
Y1 - 2021/10/1
N2 - In many health systems, it is difficult to carry out traditional rehabilitation programs as the systems are stressed. We evaluate the effectiveness of a telerehabilitation program conducted in primary care in post-COVID-19 patients. An observational, prospective study was conducted in seven primary care centers in Chile. We included adult patients (>18 years) with a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. The telerehabilitation program consisted of 24 sessions of supervised home-based exercise training. The efficacy was measured by the 1-min sit-to-stand test (1-min STST), the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), fatigue, and dyspnea symptoms before and after intervention. We included 115 patients (55.4% female) with a mean age of 55.6 ± 12.7 years. Fifty-seven patients (50%) had antecedents of hospitalization, and 35 (30.4%) were admitted to the ICU. The 1-min STST was improved after the intervention from 20.5 ± 10.2 (53.1 ± 25.0%predicted) to 29.4 ± 11.9 (78.2 ± 28.0% predicted) repetitions (p < 0.001). The SF-36 global score improved significantly from 39.6 ± 17.6 to 58.9 ± 20.5. Fatigue and dyspnea improved significantly after the intervention. Although limited by the absence of a control group, this report showed that a telerehabilitation program applied in primary health care is feasible and was effective in improving physical capacity, quality of life and symptoms in adult survivors of COVID-19.
AB - In many health systems, it is difficult to carry out traditional rehabilitation programs as the systems are stressed. We evaluate the effectiveness of a telerehabilitation program conducted in primary care in post-COVID-19 patients. An observational, prospective study was conducted in seven primary care centers in Chile. We included adult patients (>18 years) with a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. The telerehabilitation program consisted of 24 sessions of supervised home-based exercise training. The efficacy was measured by the 1-min sit-to-stand test (1-min STST), the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), fatigue, and dyspnea symptoms before and after intervention. We included 115 patients (55.4% female) with a mean age of 55.6 ± 12.7 years. Fifty-seven patients (50%) had antecedents of hospitalization, and 35 (30.4%) were admitted to the ICU. The 1-min STST was improved after the intervention from 20.5 ± 10.2 (53.1 ± 25.0%predicted) to 29.4 ± 11.9 (78.2 ± 28.0% predicted) repetitions (p < 0.001). The SF-36 global score improved significantly from 39.6 ± 17.6 to 58.9 ± 20.5. Fatigue and dyspnea improved significantly after the intervention. Although limited by the absence of a control group, this report showed that a telerehabilitation program applied in primary health care is feasible and was effective in improving physical capacity, quality of life and symptoms in adult survivors of COVID-19.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Dyspnea
KW - Fatigue
KW - Physical capacity
KW - Quality of life
KW - Telerehabilitation
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85115736021
U2 - 10.3390/jcm10194428
DO - 10.3390/jcm10194428
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85115736021
VL - 10
JO - Journal of clinical medicine
JF - Journal of clinical medicine
IS - 19
M1 - 4428
ER -