Tele-rehabilitation Program After Hospitalization for COVID-19

Summary

Given the number of hospitalized subjects for COVID-19, the difficulties linked to the infectious risk, and the high cost of managing departments for COVID-19 subjects, the execution of home rehabilitation programs, in the form of telerehabilitation, was suggested as a viable option.

The aim of our study will be to investigate the effectiveness of a structured telerehabilitation program with a specific rehabilitation intervention on exercise tolerance at home in the subject discharged after hospitalization for COVID-19 pneumonia, in comparison to a traditional remote monitoring program (without any rehabilitation intervention).

Other secondary objectives will be the evaluation of safety, feasibility, clinical impact on symptom status (asthenia, dyspnea), gas exchange (day, night and under exertion), lung function, muscle strength, functional capacity and quality of life.

Conditions

• COVID-19 Pneumonia

Interventions

OTHER

TR

TR is a specific remote tele rehabilitation program on exercise activity managed by the physiotherapist (PT) at home, this is the experimental group. PT will explain the rehabilitation program at hospital discharge by the use of a brochure and videos. TR will include an early exercise re-conditioning program \[aerobic exercise at the free body (with or without tools), cyclette and walking with a pedometer\] comprising 20 sessions of 60 minutes/day, 6 out of 7 days to be performed at home, for one month after discharge. The sessions will be self-managed by the patients 4 times a week and an expert PT will remotely supervise 2 times a week through a dedicated platform. The program will be progressively incremental and divided into 4 different levels of intensity (0- 3). In addition to this specific rehabilitation program, the patients will be followed by a nurse tutor once a day for two weeks and once a week for a further two weeks in a program of Telesurveillance.

OTHER

TSu

The patients of this group will perform a usual Telesurveillance and will be considered as control group. All patients, at discharge from the hospital, will be provided with a finger pulse oximeter and a dedicated application (app) on their personal smartphone and will be advised on free physical activity to be performed at home. The nurse will check through scheduled calls (once a day for two weeks and once a week for a further two weeks) the patient's health condition, vital parameters and drugs administration. Patients will be able to contact the nurse at each time, in case of specific need, out of the scheduled call, 7/7 days. A follow up by phone will be planned by nurse tutor at 2 months from the end of the study.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Istituto Auxologico Italiano

  collaborator OTHER

• Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Mara Paneroni, PT · Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-03-26

Primary Completion

2021-12-20

Completion

2021-12-20

Countries

• Italy

Study Locations