Long-term musculoskeletal impacts on the functionality of Brazilian patients after SARS-CoV-2: assessment through telehealth.
Franciele da Silva Pereira, João Pedro Conceição, Matheus Teixeira and 4 others
PMID 42327853WHAT IT FOUND
People who had spent longer in social distancing after COVID-19 took longer to stand up from a chair five times, and were more likely to report joint or muscle pain.
The study is a single snapshot and cannot show isolation caused this.
Key findings
01The longer participants had spent in social distancing, the longer they took to complete the five-times sit-to-stand test (p = 0.009).
02Joint pain was reported by 51.1% of participants and muscle pain by 57.4%.
03After accounting for breathlessness, sit-to-stand time and time in social distancing together, only time spent in social distancing stayed linked to musculoskeletal symptoms (odds ratio 1.11, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.23).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Only 47 people were studied, all from one centre, so the figures may not describe your patients. It is a single snapshot in time, so it cannot show that social distancing or anything else caused the pain or the slower standing times. Symptoms and the length of social distancing came from what participants reported themselves, which may be misremembered. The remote testing procedures had not been validated for this group, so the home-based measurements may not be accurate. Nearly nine in ten participants said they were already doing regular physical activity, so this is not a sample of inactive people. Everyone had ongoing musculoskeletal symptoms by design, so the study says nothing about people who recovered without them.
Declared interests
The authors declared that no financial support was received for the work or its publication.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that social distancing caused the joint and muscle problems or the slower standing times. The study measured people once, relied on their own recollection of how long they isolated, and had no comparison group.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →