Hong Kong Rehabilitation Program For Covid-19

Introduction

In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to be a pandemic. Almost all countries and territories have reported cases of COVID-19. WHO and public health authorities around the world are taking action to contain the spread of COVID-19 and manage its impact. People with COVID-19 may experience physical, cognitive, and psychological related problems. As a result, they usually experience a variety of debilitating changes to their cardiopulmonary capacity, which may translate into difficulty with simple daily tasks due to shortness of breath, muscle weakness, and frequent feelings of fatigue. Therefore, a structured rehabilitation exercise intervention program together with patient education and counseling is essential for the patient to overcome these physical and psychological symptoms. Our rehabilitation program goes further by combining Chinese herbal medicines to regulate the immune function and promote a healthy recovery. To optimize the rehabilitation process further, we also screen and monitor the quality of life of all our patients for signs of mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression using questionnaires, and validate it using blood and urine specific biomarkers.

Mission and vision

Pulmonary rehabilitation has a positive effect on the health outcomes of patients with COVID-19. We aim to establish an online tele-exercise rehabilitation approach in combination with Chinese herbal medicine based on our exercise testing metric criteria, for patients recovering from COVID-19. Our pulmonary rehabilitation is designed to reduce symptoms, optimize functional status, increase participation, and reduce healthcare costs and utilization through stabilizing or reversing systemic manifestations of the disease. And is an important therapeutic option producing significant gain across multiple outcome areas of importance to the patient.