Feasibility, of Tele-rehabilitation Following COVID-19

Since initial reports of a novel coronavirus emerged from Hubei province, China, the world has been engulfed by a pandemic with over 3 million cases and 225,000 deaths by 30th April 2020. Health care systems around the world have struggled to cope with the number of patients presenting with COVID-19 (the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus). Although the majority of people infected with the virus have a mild disease, around 20% experience a more severe illness leading to hospital admission and sometimes require treatment in intensive care. People that survive severe COVID-19 are likely to have persistent health problems that would benefit from rehabilitation. Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is a multidisciplinary program which is designed to improve physical and social performance and is typically provided for people with chronic lung conditions. PR courses typically last 6-12 weeks with patients attending classes once or twice weekly and consist of exercise and education components. PR is known to improve symptoms (e.g. breathlessness), quality of life and ability to exercise in those with lung conditions. Breathlessness is a very common symptom reported by people presenting to hospital with COVID-19 and loss of physical fitness will be very common. Using existing pulmonary rehabilitation programmes as a model, we have developed a tele-rehabilitation programme (a programme that will be delivered using video link to overcome the challenges faced by social distancing and shielding advice) for people that have been critically ill with COVID-19. In order to prove whether people benefit from this tele-rehabilitation programme after being admitted to hospital following COVID-19 we would need to perform a large clinical trial. However, before doing this it is important for us to answer some key questions:

• How many people that have been admitted to hospital and needed intensive care treatment for COVID-19 still report breathlessness, fatigue, cough and limitation of activities after being discharged from hospital?
• Is it possible to recruit these people to a trial of tele-rehabilitation after hospital discharge?
• Are people willing and able to perform tele-rehabilitation in their own home using video-link to connect with their therapist?
• Are there other rehabilitation needs that are commonly encountered by people requiring intensive care treatment for COVID-19 that could be addressed by tele-rehabilitation that the programme doesn't currently address? Investigators will perform a small study called a feasibility trial to answer these questions and gather some early information about possible benefits of tele-rehabilitation. Based on our understanding of other similar diseases, doctors and therapists think that people will benefit from rehabilitation after COVID-19. The investigators therefore want to test a trial design that makes sure that everyone gets the treatment. This type of trial is called a feasibility, wait-list design randomised controlled trial. People with breathlessness and some limitation of activities will be selected at random to receive tele-rehabilitation within 2 weeks or to wait 6-8 weeks before starting. how many people were eligible to take part, how many agreed to take part and the symptoms and rehabilitation needs that they have will be assessed. Investigators will then monitor symptoms and ability to exercise at the start and end of the trial and before and after tele-rehabilitation.