Exercise-based rehabilitation sessions benefit long-COVID patients, study finds

Exercise-based rehabilitation has been found to improve the short-term exercise capacity of 181 people with post-COVID syndrome (who had been hospitalised with COVID).

A recent study, published online in the European RespiratoryJournal on 26 February, showed  that face-to-face exercise-based rehabilitation brings significant improvements in short-term exercise capacity and measurements of immunity in people with post-COVID syndrome.

In the trial, researchers from Northumbria University working alongside clinicians at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, compared two exercise-based rehabilitation interventions to usual care in 181 people with post-COVID syndrome who had been hospitalised with COVID. The eight week programme of individually prescribed exercise and education were either face-to-face or facilitated through Your COVID Recovery - a web application developed by NHS England.

Dr Enya Daynes, Senior Specialist Physiotherapist at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust who led the research, said: “Long-COVID remains a significant health burden on the population. People experiencing post-COVID syndrome (or long-COVID) experience a myriad of symptoms which significantly impact on their day to day lives.

“We wanted to look at whether exercise-based rehabilitation interventions, either face-to-face or remote, compared to the usual care patients with long-COVID receive would bring relieve symptoms, improve quality of life, and measurements of immunity.”

In both cases the programmes consisted of individually prescribed and tailored exercise, education, self-management strategies and symptom advice. The programmes were delivered by a team of physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and exercise physiologists at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, and Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Researchers from Northumbria assessed patients’ walking capacity, health related quality of life and measures of their immune response before and after the eight week interventions.

Dr. Ioannis Vogiatzis, is a Professor of Rehabilitation Sciences at Northumbria University and member of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) expert advisory panel for managing the long term-effects of COVID-19. He led the Northumbria’s research team for this study and said: “The face-to-face programme promoted significant improvements in the walking distance compared to those who received usual care alone. Importantly, these patients experienced a significant increase in cells that support immunity against future infection. We are following up patients two years after completion of the study to understand the longer-term effects of rehabilitation in this cohort. ”

The rehabilitation study was carried out as part of the Leicester-led PHOSP-COVID study and was funded by MQ Mental Health Research and the Wolfson Foundation, and supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centres in Leicester and Oxford Health. PHOSP-COVID is a consortium of scientists from across the UK, researching long-term health outcomes for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. The novel findings are expected to inform NICE COVID-19 guidelines for managing the long-term effects of COVID-19 with respect to the application of multidisciplinary rehabilitation in people with post-COVID syndrome.