COVID-19 has presented a unique set of challenges for rehabilitation services around the world. While these services are typically among the most severely disrupted by the pandemic, the need for them has actually increased due to the long-term consequences of the virus. Assessing the rehabilitation needs of each individual patient—including both physical and psychological requirements—is essential to determine the most effective care plan. COVID-19 can have long term effects and long term symptoms, such as fatigue, brain fog, and muscle weakness, which can affect the body and brain and impact daily living and functional status. At UW Medicine, specialists in all areas of medicine, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, psychology, vocational rehabilitation and social work, are available to help those affected by COVID-19. In order to free up health personnel for intensive care services and minimize risk to patients, many services have been reduced or adapted. For example, remote evaluation and remote treatment services have been developed. Health care providers use screening tools to determine functional status and rehabilitation needs, and ongoing research is focused on improving these assessments to better address the diverse challenges faced by post COVID and long COVID patients.
The Clinical Management of Patients with COVID-19 course series is dedicated to the rehabilitation of patients with COVID-19. Early rehabilitation and symptom management, including breathing exercises and physical activity, are important to address respiratory function and support full recovery. Patients who are seriously ill from COVID-19 are likely to need rehabilitation during and after their acute illness. Physical weakness and generalized weakness are obvious goals of treatment in rehabilitation, but cognitive changes are often less evident at first and can pose a major risk to patient safety. Prolonged bedrest can lead to muscle weakness and disability, making inpatient rehabilitation or care in a rehabilitation hospital necessary for patients with severe disability or those at higher risk, such as individuals with diabetes. The complexity and variability of the damage caused by COVID-19 means that there is no single method specific to determining the need for rehabilitation. Outpatient rehabilitation, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and speech language pathologists play a key role in supporting activities of daily living and daily living skills for patients recovering from post COVID and long COVID.
However, mood changes should be a main goal of treatment since anxiety and depression can cause the rehabilitation process to fail and lower overall quality of life when recovering from any illness. Mental health support and assistance are crucial for patients experiencing depression, anxiety, or other mental health challenges during recovery. At Michigan Medicine, my colleagues in neuropsychology and rehabilitation psychology treated patients exclusively through video when infection rates were still very high. Community support, contact with health care providers, and making an appointment for ongoing rehabilitation services—including support for those with disability—are important for continued recovery. Everyone who treats these patients wants them to thrive, but may not know the extent to which rehabilitation can help. It is essential to address the diverse rehabilitation needs of each individual patient, including those at higher risk or with comorbidities such as diabetes, and to provide support from a multidisciplinary team to optimize outcomes and restore function to the body and brain affected by COVID-19.
Addressing Other Conditions
The transformative impact of COVID-19 revolutionizes how healthcare organizations approach comprehensive patient recovery, particularly for individuals managing complex pre-existing cardiovascular conditions. Organizations are discovering that patients with established heart disease experience significantly enhanced symptom management challenges when COVID-19 intersects with their existing conditions. This groundbreaking understanding makes it essential for healthcare providers to deploy cutting-edge, holistic methodologies when supporting patients through their COVID-19 recovery journey.
Innovative multidisciplinary teams—seamlessly integrating physical therapists, occupational therapists, and specialized healthcare professionals—deliver comprehensive evaluation and treatment solutions that transform patient outcomes. Through strategic collaboration, these expert teams efficiently identify how COVID-19 and existing conditions interact, ensuring each patient receives a streamlined, evidence-based rehabilitation program that addresses their unique clinical profile with unprecedented precision.
Advanced patients with cardiovascular conditions benefit from specialized physical medicine interventions designed to safely revolutionize strength rebuilding and enhance cardiovascular function optimization. Occupational therapists expertly streamline patients' daily activity adaptations to their current functional capabilities, while physical therapists focus on systematically restoring muscle function and endurance through proven methodologies. This collaborative, solutions-oriented approach not only accelerates recovery from COVID-19 but also significantly elevates management and improvement of chronic conditions that may have been impacted throughout the pandemic.
By addressing the comprehensive spectrum of health concerns through this innovative care model, healthcare providers successfully enable patients recovering from COVID-19 to achieve superior outcomes and dramatically enhanced quality of life, even when navigating the most complex medical challenges. This evidence-based, partnership-centered approach delivers measurable improvements in patient satisfaction, functional recovery, and long-term health optimization.
