The following is a summary of “Clinical effectiveness of rehabilitation in ambulatory care for patients with persisting symptoms after COVID-19: a systematic review,” published in the June 2023 issue of Infectious Diseases by Dillen et al.
For a study, researchers aimed to collect all the existing information about how rehabilitation treatments can help patients with lingering symptoms after acute COVID-19 in ambulatory care.
On May 9, 2022, articles from different databases were searched to find information about rehabilitation treatments for COVID-19 patients. Only those studies reported how effective rehabilitation therapy was for adults with persistent symptoms even 4 weeks after getting COVID-19. CASP cohort study checklist, the Cochrane Risk of Bias Assessment Tool, and the GRADE framework were used to check study quality and evidence reliability.
A total of 38 studies were included, with 2,790 participants. Doing exercises and breathing exercises might help with tiredness, difficulty breathing, chest pain, and quality of life. However, the evidence against this needed to be stronger (based on 6 RCTs and 12 cohort studies). On the other hand, evidence related to nutritional supplements, helping with tiredness, difficulty breathing, muscle pain, feeling, emotions, quality of life, and movement, were also weak (based on 4 RCTs). Additionally, evidence about olfactory training’s effect on sensory function and quality of life could have been better (based on 4 RCTs and 3 cohort studies). Getting different types of treatment together might help with tiredness, difficulty breathing, moving, lung function, quality of life, and going back to a daily routine, but again the evidence was not strong (based on 5 other studies). The evidence quality could have been higher due to study limitations and other issues.
The study concluded that physical training, breathing exercises, olfactory training, and multidisciplinary treatment were potentially effective rehabilitation therapies for patients with ongoing post-COVID-19 symptoms, though uncertainties remained. These insights should guide care practitioners and be integrated into practice guidelines, with rigorous studies needed to confirm hypotheses and report adverse events.
Source: bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-023-08374-x
