Vol. 6, Issue 1, Part A (2024)

Some patients suffer from various multisystem symptoms even after active process of COVID‑19 illness has settled lasting more than four weeks called as long COVID. Pulmonary rehabilitation therapy is the qualitative option in those patients. This study aims and focuses on the study of the impact of pulmonary rehabilitation on outcome of long COVID patients through improvement in MMRC dyspnoea scale, oxygen saturation, cough score, six‑minute walk distance and biomarkers of inflammation Materials and Methods: A retrospective observational study was taken from the data of electronic medical records among 71 Long COVID patients. Parameters like Spo2, MMRC scale, cough score, six‑minute walking distance together with blood levels of D‑dimer, C‑reactive protein (CRP), leucocyte count at the time of admission and after three weeks of pulmonary rehabilitation were taken and observed. patients were kept into the group according to the outcome into full recovery and partial recovery group. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS software version 19.0. Result: Among 71 cases in our study 60 (84.50%) where male with mean age was 52.7±13.23 years. Biomarkers like CRP and d‑Dimer were elevated in 68 (95.7%) and 48 (67.6%) patients, respectively, at the time of admission. After 3 weeks of pulmonary rehabilitation mean SPO2, cough score, 6MWD showed drastic changes such as significant improvement and normalization of biomarkers in recovered group of 61 out of 71 which was statistically significant. Conclusion: Significant improvement of oxygen saturation, MMRC grade, cough score, six‑minute walk distance and normalization of biomarkers were marked following pulmonary rehabilitation. Thus, pulmonary rehabilitation therapy comes out to be very beneficial for the patient suffering from COVID-19 and should be offered as a plan of care to all long COVID cases.