EPS1.01 Physiotherapy practice of French cystic fibrosis children changed during lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Objectives: In France, chest physiotherapy for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients is partly performed by liberal physiotherapists at home or at the professional's office. The first lockdown, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, impaired the possibility to practice liberal physiotherapy. We aimed to describe, in our paediatric CF centre, the changes in physiotherapy and sport practice induced by this lockdown, and to correlate it with respiratory symptoms and pulmonary function evolution. Methods: During the lockdown, 68 CF patients >6 years old and their parents answered a questionnaire on time spent in physiotherapy, with or without a liberal professional, and sport practice before and during lockdown. Respiratory symptoms and FEV1 were collected at the venues before and after the lockdown. Results: This study showed a clear reduction of time spent with a liberal physiotherapist from 73 min/week before lockdown to 30 min/week during lockdown. Time of physiotherapy practised alone or with parents increased from 2 min/week to 26 min/week. Thus, the overall physiotherapy time per week was only slightly reduced from 90 min/week before lockdown to 80 min/week during lockdown. Time spent in sport practice was not significantly decreased on average (233 min/week before lockdown vs 225 min/week during lockdown). The standard deviation of sport practice evolution was large (–8 min ± 225 min), reflecting a wide variation of sport practice changes from one patient to another. No deterioration in respiratory symptoms nor FEV1 was observed. Conclusions: During the lockdown in France, we noted that our patients drastically decreased their time spent with a liberal physiotherapist, without enough counterbalance with auto-drainage or sport pratice increase. Nevertheless, their respiratory status was not impaired, suggesting some other confounding factors, such as prevention from viral infection, time to rest or improvement of other treatment observance.