Acute Occupational and Physical Therapy for Patients With COVID-19: A Retrospective Cohort Study.
Katie Coakley, Laura Friedman, Kaitlyn McLoughlin and 2 others
PMID 35926570WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with COVID-19 who received therapy often had impaired activity tolerance, balance, strength, and cognition.
ICU patients improved on mobility and daily activity scores by discharge, but gains were not compared with patients who did not receive therapy.
Key findings
01Among 165 patients seen by therapy, impaired activity tolerance was recorded in 96%, balance in 87%, strength in 68%, and cognition in 59%.
02Therapy patients with an ICU stay improved by an average of 2.5 points on the 35-point FSS-ICU and by an average of 2.8 raw points on the 24-point AM-PAC Basic Mobility.
03Therapists recommended post-discharge therapy for 123 patients seen by therapy (76%).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Patients were not randomly assigned to therapy; physicians ordered it, so patients who received therapy may have differed in ways that affected outcomes. Patients who did not receive therapy were not assessed for impairments or outcome scores, so their function cannot be compared with therapy patients. FSS-ICU was used only in the ICU and AM-PAC only on non-critical care services, so many ICU patients did not have the same score tracked from first therapy evaluation to discharge. The study recorded recommended therapy frequency but not whether patients actually received that frequency. The therapy group had 165 patients, and some impairment and demographic fields had missing data. Comorbidities were recorded only if mentioned in admission notes, and severity was not available. The review was conducted at Loyola University Medical Center during April and May 2020.
Declared interests
The supplied text does not include a funding or conflict of interest declaration; the metadata lists Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the functional gains as proof that therapy caused them, because outcome scores were only available for patients who received therapy and patients were not randomly assigned to therapy.