None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
COVID-19 is one of the greatest health crisis worldwide. Unfortunately, some COVID-19 survivors also experienced post-acute COVID-19 or long COVID, wherein the patients have persistent symptoms and illness that could last for several weeks to months or even longer, despite the clinical resolution. Long-COVID is a multisystem disease associated with a broad range of symptoms, including fever, fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, headaches, fatigue, neurocognitive difficulties, and mental health problems such as depression. Furthermore, increased lost fitness has also been reported in post-acute COVID-19 patients. As the number of patients recovering from COVID-19 grows, it is paramount to establish a comprehensive understanding of the healthcare issues post-acute COVID and subsequently, plan the rehabilitation program. Additionally, the guidance for clinicians for return to exercise in COVID-19 survivors is currently based on indirect evidence. Considering the safety of health care providers, the rehabilitative or exercise program for post-acute COVID-19 is suggested to be held via telecommunication. This will limit contact between health care providers and patients and therefore reduce the risk of nosocomial spread while accelerating the recovery of patients with long COVID-19. However, one by one teleconsultation is not possible due to the high number of COVID cases and subsequently, COVID 19 survivors in Indonesia, therefore adopting digital technology to move the rehabilitation program into the online platform are easy to be employed. Despite the feasibility of this online platform to support the rehabilitative program, to date, the evidence of this technology specifically in patients with and after COVID in Indonesia is non-existent. Therefore, this study aims to implement exercise programs using mobile applications on the patients with long COVID-19. The results of this study have the potential to provide insight into the beneficial effect of exercise training using mobile application on vascular endothelial function, respiratory function, and cardiorespiratory fitness.
Interventions
The participants will be randomly allocated into the control and intervention groups. The participants in the intervention group should maintain their level of physical activity and standard care (medicine and/or physical rehabilitation program) and they will receive additional exercise programs and supervision delivered via mobile interactive platforms.
Exercise intervention:
Each exercise session will include the aerobic and resistance training that will start at the mild intensity (RPE 6-8)
The participants will be randomly allocated into the control and intervention groups. The participants in the intervention group should maintain their level of physical activity and standard care (medicine and/or physical rehabilitation program) and they will receive additional exercise programs and supervision delivered via mobile interactive platforms. Exercise intervention: Each exercise session will include the aerobic and resistance training that will start at the mild intensity (RPE 6-8) and progressively increase by 2 RPE each week to moderate intensity (RPE 13-14). For aerobic exercise, the participants will follow the movements from video for example bicep steps back, soft clap jack, soft high knee, etc. For resistance exercise, they will need simple exercise equipment such as a chair and dumbbell (this will be provided by the research team). The example of resistance exercise movement is bottle biceps curl, calf raise, chair squat, wall push-up, etc. Exercise sessions will be performed 3x per week for a total of 4 weeks. Each exercise session will be approximately 20-40 minutes in duration. All participants will be assessed for their cardiorespiratory fitness and muscle strength prior to their allocation to the exercise program. The exercise session will be delivered by mobile interactive application that is specifically designed for this study with the basis one-on-one by following the video containing the exercise program embedded in the application. The exercise session will be supervised by exercise physiologist or physical-rehabilitation specialist (medical doctor). Each supervisor will responsible for up to 5 participants. At the end of the exercise, participants will be asked to fill the RPE and will be notified when is the next exercise session according to the participant’s preference of time. The application system will also record the participant’s attendance in the exercise session. The supervisor can also monitor the adherence and RPE of participants through their dashboard.
Sponsors
Universitas Airlangga
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to 70 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Participants with long COVID-19 criteria (3 months after the diagnosis of SARS-Cov-2 infection, continue to have signs and symptoms not explainable by other causes) in accordance with the guideline of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) and Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP)
Exclusion criteria
Patients post-acute COVID-19 without symptoms Have a musculoskeletal condition that impairs their ability to undertake exercise training.
Outcome results
None listed