This online rehab program enhances quality of life for long COVID sufferers

By Isobel Williams via SWNS

An online rehab program can improve the quality of life for people with long covid in just eight weeks, according to a new study.

The REGAIN program, which involves online group sessions, was seen to improve fatigue, pain, and depression compared with usual care.

The University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust researchers say this accessible, resource-efficient program can be delivered at scale and will assist clinicians in the treatment of this complex condition.

Post-COVID-19 condition, commonly known as long COVID-19, is defined as symptoms persisting or new symptoms appearing more than four weeks after initial infection.

As of March 2023, 1.9 million people in the UK reported COVID-19 symptoms persisting beyond 12 weeks, 1.3 million beyond one year, and over 750,000 beyond two years.

Symptoms include extreme tiredness, shortness of breath, memory loss and muscle aches, all of which the researchers note can affect quality of life, social interaction, and economic productivity.

The researchers set out to see if they could improve this quality of life with a structured, online, supervised, group physical and mental health rehabilitation program.

To get their results, published in The BMJ, the team conducted a trial with 585 adults who had been discharged from hospital at least 3 months earlier after a COVID-19 infection and who reported substantial lasting effects that they attributed to the virus.

287 participants were provided with usual care while the other 298 took part in the REGAIN intervention.

They found that the REGAIN intervention led to sustained improvements in health-related quality of life at three and 12 months compared with usual care, driven mostly by improved fatigue, pain, and depression.

At three months, 17 percent of the intervention group reported that their overall health was “much better now” compared with eight percent in the usual care group.

Of 21 serious adverse events, only one, fainting with vomiting 24 hours after a live exercise session, was possibly related to the intervention, which the researchers note suggests it is safe.

The team hopes that their findings will help to advise medical professionals on how best to care for the condition.

Professor Gordon McGregor from the Department of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation said: “Findings from this trial have important clinical implications.

“Improvements in quality of life were driven mostly by improved fatigue, pain interference, and depression, suggesting rehabilitation programs for post-COVID-19 conditions should target these impairments.

“The REGAIN trial provides the first high quality randomized controlled trial evidence confirming the clinical benefit, and lack of harm, of online physical and mental health rehabilitation for post-covid-19 condition, which will assist clinicians in the treatment of this complex condition.”