Sly Saint
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Some practitioners are incorporating chronic fatigue rehabilitation research into their treatments
https://scienceline.org/2022/08/phy...the-wake-of-a-tsunami-of-long-covid-patients/
Although nearly all long COVID patients experience bouts of fatigue, especially after physical activity, some suffer from exhaustion so severe after even the lowest level of exertion that it is called post-exertional malaise. Experts say that some level of fatigue following a viral illness is to be expected due to a loss of muscle tone during physical inactivity. However, a recent study finds that nearly half of long COVID patients experience this more serious malaise.
The symptom of post-exertional malaise is the most common symptom of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a complex chronic disease that is usually triggered by an infection and affects an estimated 15-30 million people worldwide. While experts are still unclear about the differences between long COVID and ME/CFS, it is clear that many patients who survived acute COVID infection are developing this misunderstood malaise. Therefore, understanding the physiology of this previously under-researched condition is important for the rehabilitation of a large number of long COVID patients.
Todd Davenport, vice-chair of the physical therapy doctorate program at the University of the Pacific, has studied ME/CFS rehabilitation for more than 12 years. He says that the idea behind physical therapy for these patients is to advocate that people exercise in ways that don’t trigger the parts of their energy system damaged by disease.
https://scienceline.org/2022/08/phy...the-wake-of-a-tsunami-of-long-covid-patients/