Rehab Centers Pop up Across Europe for the Treatment of Long-Term Effects of COVID-19

For the greater part of Europe, the peak of COVID-19 contagions has reportedly passed. However, CNN reported, while hospitals are not crammed with acute cases anymore, thousands of individuals with COVID-19, whether they are confirmed or suspected, and several weeks, or even months, later, claimed they are far from complete recovery.

In the United Kingdom, the so-called "communities of sufferers of 'long COVID' have spread on the internet, as people attempt to handle what seems to be long-term effects of the pandemic which, reports said, remains unclear and unknown.

Meanwhile, according to health officials in Italy and the UK, two of the European countries worst affected by the COVID-19 crisis, they have begun offering rehabilitation services to survivors of the fatal infectious disease.

Such services should be extensive since studies now indicate that COVID-19 known to be a "multi-system" illness that can impair not just the lungs, but the heart, liver, kidneys, the skin, and gastrointestinal tract, among others, as well.

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Post-COVID Observation

Post-COVID rehab institute director, Dr. Priero Clavario said, his team had already started communicating with several hundreds of survivors of COVID-19 who went through treatment, in May, at hospitals in the district. Among the hundreds, the team has now visited over 50 survivors.

Dr. Clavario explained the said people they visited were not the only ones who were intubated and stayed in the intensive care unit. 

They were patients too, who went not beyond three days of confinement and were able to go home after. "We investigate aspects that escape," he continued, standard exams for both virology and pulmonary. 

Of the more-than-50 survivors, Clavario's team visited, eight of them showed a need for "follow-up support," and did not experience any complication. 

Meanwhile, 50 percent were seen as psychological problems and 15 percent with post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

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A Team of Experts for the Post-COVID Assessment

Each of the patients was given two evaluations for half-a-day each, which involved multiple examinations by a group of medical experts, including neurologists, cardiologists, physicians, and psychologists, enumerated Clavario.

What he found the most surprising, explained Clavario, is that "Even the patients did not spend any time in the ICU" were tremendously weak. More so, there was no proof of the problem with cardiology or pulmonary, and yet, they could not step even just a single "flight of stairs." 

The majority of the patients, according to Clavario, showed a severe weakness in the muscle. In relation to this finding, a 52-year-old nurse reportedly needed to return to work after she recovered from COVID-19, but unfortunately, she was unable to do so physically.

The positive thing though, he said, was that, after a period of exercise in their gym, most of the patients were able to recover efficiently.

The LongCovidSOS

To date, there are now over 8,500 members of the Long COVID Support Group in the country via the leading social media network, Facebook. This was formed by COVID-19 sufferers in May, who, according to reports, called for rehabilitation, research, and recognition.

Meanwhile, another organization, LongCovidSOS, also called on the government to acknowledge the needs of the so-called "long-overhaul COVID-19 sufferers and guarantee they don't experience discrimination from employers.

While some patients went through treatment in hospital, others battled against the virus at home. A lot of people were not officially confirmed as getting infected with the virus despite the symptoms they experienced.

In some circumstances, they failed to get tested due to lack of capacity during the pandemic's early weeks of rage throughout the nation, even for health workers, themselves. Other people got tested, but results were negative.

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