Rehabilitation of Critically Ill COVID-19 Survivors

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has now infected over a million people around the world. This pandemic is stressing intensive care unit (ICU) capacity due to critical illness from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Survivors of critical illness from acute respiratory syndrome and the prior SARS epidemic suggest that critically ill COVID-19 survivors may experience a wide range of sequelae, resulting in long-lasting physical, cognitive, and psychological dysfunction. Early rehabilitation can mitigate these complications and improve the quality of life. However, early rehabilitation of critically ill COVID-19 patients is challenging due to patients' severity of illness, the need for strict infection control measures, staffing issues, and scarcity of personal protective equipment. During this public health emergency, navigating rehabilitation of critically ill COVID-19 patients is crucial to allow timely transition of patients across different levels of care. Such timely transitions are vital for improving outcomes and freeing ICU and hospital beds within acute care hospitals. In this review, we discuss the challenges and potential solutions for rehabilitation of critically ill COVID-19 patients throughout the continuum of care.