The Relationship between Physical Activity and Long COVID: A Cross-Sectional Study, 2022, Wright et al

Abstract

The relationship between Long Covid (LC) symptoms and physical activity (PA) levels are unclear. In this cross-sectional study, we examined this association, and the advice that individuals with LC received on PA. Adults with LC were recruited via social media. The New Zealand physical activity questionnaire short form (NZPAQ-SF) was adapted to capture current and pre-COVID-19 PA levels and activities of daily living (ADLs). Participants reported how PA affected their symptoms, and what PA recommendations they had received from healthcare professionals and other resources; 477 participants completed the survey.

Mean age (SD) was 45.69 (10.02) years, 89.1% female, 92.7% white, and median LC duration was 383.5 days (IQR: 168.25,427). Participants were less active than pre-COVID-19 (26.88 ± 74.85 vs. 361.68 ± 396.29 min per week, p < 0.001) and required more assistance with ADLs in a 7-day period compared to pre-COVID-19 (2.23 ± 2.83 vs. 0.11 ± 0.74 days requiring assistance, p < 0.001). No differences were found between the number of days of assistance required with ADLs, or the amount of PA, and the different durations of LC illness (p > 0.05).

Participants reported the effect of PA on LC symptoms as: worsened (74.84%), improved (0.84%), mixed effect (20.96%), or no effect (28.72%). Participants received contradictory advice on whether to be physically active in LC. LC is associated with a reduction in PA and a loss of independence, with most participants reporting PA worsened LC symptoms. PA level reduction is independent of duration of LC. Research is needed to understand how to safely return to PA without worsening LC symptoms.

Open access, https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5093/htm

 

Not really.
You wait until you are ready.

Unless someone discovers how to get rid of LC symptoms, but that is another matter.

 

I found that comment a bit worrying.

The authors might be thinking that they just need to find the right type and dose of exercise.

 

How does this happen without harming the majority?

 

Ideology sure is a powerful drug. How does that even follow? Make any sense at all? Do they think trying twice as hard will do it? Just keep trying the same key for the wrong lock, maybe one day the lock will just give up, have pity and open up anyway.

This is an infinite loop of failure. The only thing that's allowed is to keep it looping. How can any profession reach such a state of rejecting reality and substituting their own, without any accountability kicking in after decades of abject failure?

 

And even then it's difficult to know for sure, symptoms might be gone but . . .

 

One of the authors tweeting their paper

 

article
Long Covid: The activity shown to make symptoms worse in 75 percent of cases - study

https://www.express.co.uk/life-styl...toms-breathlessness-fatigue-recovery-exercise

 

The thing that annoys me more than anything else is that we keep testing it, over and over and over. At what point will they accept the findings, because its been over 2 years now and we are still testing if long covid patients get worse with exercise and find they do. Do researchers not care if they hurt these people continuously replicating the same finding?! Instead of testing things we already know maybe look at other things.

 

Another tweet by one of the authors

https://twitter.com/user/status/1557457229699338242


my response

https://twitter.com/user/status/1558451870087409664


ETA I must read all this more carefully.
Concerned by the repeated use of ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’ on a paper written this year…..