The following is a summary of “COVID-19 vaccination of patients with chronic immune-mediated inflammatory disease,” published in the September 2023 issue of Cardiology by Kogel et al.
Patients with post-COVID symptoms have no known effective treatment, but physical exercise may be a safe and effective option.
Researchers started a retrospective study to investigate the safety and efficacy of physical exercise for post-COVID-19 symptoms.
They conducted a systematic literature search, uncovering a need for randomized training studies in post-COVID patients. This led to a prospective randomized controlled trial with open-label and blinded endpoint evaluation. Initially, 272 fatigued post-COVID patients were screened, excluding those with cardiovascular issues. Out of those, 57 patients participated and were randomly assigned to either four weeks of supervised personalized training or standard care. Follow-up assessments were conducted at 3 and 6 months.
The results showed no adverse events associated with the training program. The training group demonstrated a notably higher increase in VO2peak (10.0 ± 12.7% vs. 0.1 ± 8.9%, P<0.01, respectively) and oxygen pulse (9.8 ± 10.8% vs. 0.0 ± 13.9%, P<0.05, respectively) during Spiroergometry. After 4 weeks, both groups improved the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory-20, McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire, and Post-COVID-19 Functional Status parameters. During the follow-up period, the exercise group exhibited significantly higher total physical activity per week than the controls (1280 ± 1192 min vs. 644 ± 554 min, P<0.05, respectively). The improvements in fatigue and quality of life were similar between the training and usual care groups.
They concluded that exercise was safe and improved maximal exercise capacity in post-COVID patients.
Source: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00392-023-02300-6
