Abstract
Covid-19 can disrupt a person’s circadian rhythm, which can impair his sleep, leading to insomnia and snowball into depression, anxiety and other cognitive changes, not infrequently a panic disorder .Present pandemic also witnessed the shortage of essential medicines including oxygen ,unavailability of intensive care beds ,making the patients and attendants panicky, alike. It has been observed that all the efforts are being put forth to understand the epidemiology, clinical symptoms, transmission patterns and the management of the covid-19 outbreak ,but there has been a little concern put forward over the traumatizing effect on one’s mental health. This pandemic witnessed the utter paucity of qualified medical personnel to serve in wards hence forcing physiotherapy students and interns to compliment their medical counterparts. We understood the need of psychological counselling for these admitted patients and we deputed physiotherapists to render the same. The benefit of counselling was quantified as the fall in the incidence of weekly panic attacks. This study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of physiotherapists posted in covid wards in reducing the panic attacks, since physiotherapist do have a basic knowledge of the psychology as a subject and they usually also have ample spare time in the wards, after they have completed their specialized duties. We studied 552 admitted patients of covid-19 in two medical colleges, identified patients with frequent panic attacks, who were then counselled psychologically. The effects of counselling sessions were observed for average 7 days of admission. We found on an average 64% fall in the number of panic attacks in the psychologically disturbed patients. We hence conclude that the physiotherapists posted in the covid wards should also be utilized in rendering psychological counselling to minimize occurrence of the panic attacks.
 Keywords: psychological, physiotherapists & Covid.
Highlights
This pandemic of covid-19 is in itself a war like crisis to the world with severe physical and mental health complications
A review published in The Lancet said that the separation from loved ones, loss of freedom, boredom, and uncertainty can cause deterioration in an individual's mental health status.[2]. It was observed in covid-19 in-patient wards, that the patients but attendants required focussed psychological attention towards their immediate problems and unprecedented apprehensions, failing which they were found to be ending up suffering from panic disorder
There was 99 subjects under 35 years, 282 between 35 to 60 years and 171 above 60 years and the results showed that after a week of psychological counselling improvement was seen in 65% of subjects below 35 years,10% improvement between 35 to 60 years and 25% improvement in age group of above 60 years
Summary
This pandemic of covid-19 is in itself a war like crisis to the world with severe physical and mental health complications. Most people infected with the covid-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment Older people, and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness.[1]The covid-19 virus spreads primarily through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes.[1] Our healthcare system had been reasonably managing all the physical symptoms, but mental symptoms were being overlooked, due to work-overload and low priority of these symptoms against serious physical issues. Our psychological sessions benefitted the upset and disturbed patients in terms of significantly decreased occurrence of panic attacks
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
