article · Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation
A randomised controlled trial assessed the impact of a home-based pulmonary rehabilitation programme on individuals recovering from post-COVID-19 syndrome. The study recruited sixty-eight patients aged between 40 and 70 who experienced persistent fatigue, shortness of breath, and exercise intolerance. Participants were divided equally to receive either standard medical care alone or standard care combined with a twelve-week home-based pulmonary rehabilitation exercise routine. Following the intervention, participants who undertook the exercise programme demonstrated statistically significant improvements compared with the control group. These included lower reported fatigue levels, greater walking distances in a six-minute walk test, enhanced physical fitness index scores, reduced breathlessness, and better quality of life as measured by health survey scores. The findings indicate that home-based pulmonary rehabilitation functions as an effective, low-cost adjunctive therapy to restore functional exercise capacity and alleviate ongoing post-infection symptoms.
Post-COVID-19 syndrome frequently leaves patients with chronic fatigue, breathing difficulties, and poor exercise tolerance, impeding everyday activities. Demonstrating that an accessible, home-delivered exercise regimen reliably improves physical fitness and relieves breathlessness provides clinicians and healthcare systems with an affordable, non-hospital-based strategy to help patients regain functional independence and improve long-term well-being without requiring specialised clinical facilities.
The tested home-based rehabilitation protocol represents an applied and clinically evaluated intervention that could be integrated into outpatient care, digital health platforms, or remote physical therapy services. Healthcare providers, telerehabilitation developers, and public health systems could deploy this regimen to support individuals recovering from post-COVID-19 syndrome. Because the trial has demonstrated clinical efficacy over twelve weeks, the approach is near-market for practical service adoption, requiring only standardised programme guidance and delivery mechanisms.
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BACKGROUND: Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is an epidemic condition that compromises various consequences. The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of home-based pulmonary rehabilitation on exercise capacity in patients with post COVID-19 syndrome. METHODS: The study was designed as a randomized control trial. A total of sixty-eight patients with post COVID-19 syndrome complaining of fatigue, dyspnea, and exercise intolerance participated in this study. Their ages ranged from 40 to 70 years old. The patients were randomly classified into two equal groups. The control group received usual medical care only, whereas the rehabilitation group received a selected home-based pulmonary rehabilitation exercise program plus the same usual medical care. The Physical Fitness Index (PFI), Chalder fatigue index, SF-36 questionnaire, dyspnea scale, and six-minute walk test (6 MWT) were measured before and after 12 weeks of intervention. RESULTS: The rehabilitation group showed a significant lower mean of Chalder fatigue (11.1 ± 0.94) and a higher mean of 6MWT (439.7 ± 25.3) and PFI (52.3 ± 10.2), in addition to a higher mean of the SF-36 Questionnaire (66.4 ± 3.7) and a significant improvement of dyspnea in the mMRC score (26.7%), grade 2, (63.3%), grade 1 (10%), and grade 0 with a p-value < 0.001 when compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: Home-based pulmonary rehabilitation (HBPR) for patients with post COVID-19 syndrome is effective and has a potential direct influence on exercise capacity, fatigue, dyspnea, and quality of life. HBPR could be considered an adjunctive, applicable, and low-cost therapy for patients with post COVID-19 syndrome. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was registered in Pan African Clinical Trial Registry as a clinical trial ID (PACTR202111640499636), November 2021.
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DOI: 10.1186/s12984-024-01340-x
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