Sport as Therapy

Aim: This article investigates the influence of the confinement from March 14th, 2020 until mid-May 2020 induced by the Covid-19 outbreak on the exercise behavior of rehabilitation patients and their health-related quality of life (HRQoL).Methods: A total of 118 rehabilitation patients completed a fully standardized online survey. The Short Form 12 Health Survey (SF-12) and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire in its short form (IPAQ) was used to assess HRQoL and weekly physical activity (PA) energy expenditure before and during the confinement.Results: Vigorous PA decreased by 64.7% (p=.001, r=.31) during confinement. There was also a decrease in moderate PA of 29.6% (p=.017, r=.20) and a decrease in total PA of 21.9% (p=.001, r=.31). Both physical and psychological HRQoL domains changed significantly during the confinement: the value of the physical component scale (PCS) decreased by 14.4% (p=<.001, r=.73), the value of the mental component scale (MCS) by 0.05% (p=.018, r=.22). Correlation analysis showed significant associations between vigorous PA and PCS value (p<.001), and between total PA and PCS value (p<.05) during the confinement. There were neither significant relationships between moderate PA and PCS nor between walking and PCS. Furthermore, no correlations between any PA intensities and MCS values were observed.Conclusion: The confinement induced a significant decrease of weekly physical activity (PA) energy expenditure, especially vigorous PA, in rehabilitation patients. Both total PA (p<.05) and vigorous PA (p<.001) show significant positive correlations with the PCS values of the SF-12 questionnaire.Key Words:Vigorous Physical Activity, SF-12, IPAQ, Internal Medicine, Orthopedics, Exercise Therapy, Oncolog