Review Effects of physical rehabilitation interventions on exercise performance, dyspnea, and [HRQOL] in [acute and LC]: [Review], 2025, Neto et al

Effects of physical rehabilitation interventions on exercise performance, dyspnea, and health-related quality of life in acute and post-acute COVID-19 patients: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Mansueto Gomes Neto, William Suzart Coutinho de Araujo, Ana Carolina Pereira Nunes Pinto, Micheli Bernardone Saquetto, Bruno Prata Martinez, Vinicius Afonso Gomes, Carlos Brites, and Vitor Oliveira Carvalho

Objective
To analyze the published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that investigated the effects of physical rehabilitation interventions provided directly (face to face) and by telerehabilitation on exercise performance, dyspnea, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in acute and post-acute COVID-19 patients.

Methods
For this systematic review and meta-analysis, different electronic databases were searched up to January 2023. Mean difference (MD), (standardized mean difference (SMD) were calculated.

Results
34 studies (2214 patients) met the study criteria. Physical interventions may improve aerobic capacity in acute COVID-19 (SMD 1.7; 95% CI 0.37, 2.8) and in post-acute COVID-19 participants (MD 0.4; 95% CI 0.1, 07) compared to usual care for acute and pos-acute COVID-19 patients, respectively. Physical interventions may also improve dyspnea in acute (SMD −1.4; 95% CI −0.8, −0.01) and in post-acute COVID-19 participants (MD −0.4; 95% CI −0.7, −0.2) compared to usual care. Physical interventions may result in an improvement in HRQoL (physical domain) (SMD 0.6; 95% CI 0.3) in post-acute COVID-19 participants compared to usual care in pos-acute COVID-19 patients.

Discussion
The results support that physical rehabilitation interventions improve aerobic capacity and dyspnea in acute and post-COVID-19 patients. Moreover, physical interventions improve physical domain in HRQoL

Link (Chronic Illness) [Paywall]

 

This just continues to beclown the medical profession and its evidence base. It's widely known and reported that there are no effective treatments. When people with LC comment that there are no effective treatments, this rehabilitation stuff is mainly what they mean because it's been commonly offered for years. They mean in the sense of "yeah, there's this stuff, but it's useless".

And yet they go around claiming that those treatments are effective. While it's widely acknowledged that there are no treatments. This is pure disinformation, in its fundamental essence: it does not convince you of a particular truth, it convinces you that truth is unknowable, that everyone makes stuff up and you can't trust anyone. Including, it turns out, medical evidence, health care systems and professionals.

It shows it's all detached from reality, a bubble of delusion that pays no attention to what goes in or what comes out, only what they think of themselves and what they do.

 

If the abstract doesn’t mention the quality of the evidence, I’m not going to rely on their interpretation..