Occupational and Physical Therapy Strategies for the Rehabilitation of COVID-19-Related Guillain-Barré Syndrome in the Long-term Acute Care Hospital Setting: Case Report.
Catherine Connors, Stephanie McNeill, Henry Charles Hrdlicka
PMID 35023838WHAT IT FOUND
One man with COVID-19-associated Guillain-Barré syndrome regained the ability to walk and dress himself after intensive physical and occupational therapy.
He also recovered vision and upper limb strength despite a concurrent leg fracture that forced him to stay non-weight-bearing for six weeks.
Key findings
01The patient progressed from being unable to ambulate to walking 300 feet with a rolling walker and contact guard assistance by discharge.
02Grip strength increased from 15 lb to 52 lb on the right and 21 lb to 70 lb on the left during the rehabilitation stay.
03The patient’s convergence insufficiency, which caused blurry vision and reading difficulty, completely resolved by discharge following occupational therapy training.
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
The findings are based on a single patient, so they cannot establish whether the therapy caused the recovery or how other patients would respond. The patient had a concurrent ankle fracture that restricted weight-bearing, making his rehabilitation course and functional limitations atypical for GBS. Standard GBS diagnostic tests, including cerebrospinal fluid analysis and nerve conduction studies, were not performed or available for review. Records from the initial acute care hospital were incomplete, limiting the ability to track the full trajectory of the patient's early recovery.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the patient's recovery as proof that this specific therapy protocol is effective for GBS. This is a single case report without a control group, and the patient's recovery occurred alongside the natural resolution of the condition and intravenous immunoglobulin treatment, so the contribution of the rehabilitation strategies alone cannot be separated.