Rehabilitation in the treatment and management of people affected by post COVID-19 condition

In December 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) announced COVID-19 as a global health emergency and three months later the same organization announced COVID-19 as a global pandemic. From the amount of people affected by COVID-19 approximately 20% of them are suffering from post-covid-19 conditions various symptoms. In Finland over 100,000 people have become ill with covid-19 and one third of those people have symptoms that have lasted over three months. Even after these massive efforts to prevent, treat and diagnose COVID-19 we still have not exposed individuals lasting effects after acute phase. Evidence suggests that people can develop prolonged symptoms after mild or severe COVID-19 infection. The mechanism of the long-term symptoms is yet to be revealed. The objective of this thesis was to make a literature review from the latest information about the rehabilitation in treatment and management of post COVID-19 syndrome and have current information in a simple form. The last search for articles was conducted in September 2022. The database used in this thesis was PubMed and the articles used should not have been more than one year old. The articles should answer to the research question that the author of this thesis was trying to answer: what rehabilitation methods are used for post-covid-19 condition and are those methods effective in the treatment and rehabilitation for people suffering from post-covid 19 condition symptoms? Research shows that rehabilitation for post-covid-19-conditition should include a combination of physical rehabilitation exercises and cognitive training. Rehabilitation should be done based on symptoms and it should be multidisciplinary. Based on the knowledge today, rehabilitation interventions could have positive effect on people suffering from post-covid-19 condition, but evidence points out that these people benefit greatly from multidisciplinary teamwork