Covid-19 impacts the respiratory systems and leads to limited lung functionality. Respiratory rehab not only improves lung function but also reduces the duration of hospital stay. However, in-person rehabilitation is inaccessible for most in India given the limitation on trained physiotherapists, it is expensive and also unsafe for physiotherapists due to contagious nature of the disease.
A new approach of telerehab i.e. delivering respiratory rehabilitation using technology can address these two constraints and help the patients.
There is a lot of evidence[1],[2],[3],[4] supporting respiratory or pulmonary rehabilitation through telemedicine. Technology can help us leverage the expertise of the expert and scale up the availability significantly. Appropriately designed learning modules with availability of trained physiotherapists to address concerns and issues of the patients, can help patients undertake respiratory rehabilitation themselves. Such a solution would not only help COVID-19 patients, it would make a large difference to the health of 57 million COPD patients in India as well.
ReLiva Physiotherapy & Rehab, with its team of Cardio-respiratory physiotherapists is building RespiRehab, which is a selfcare app for respiratory rehabilitation for Covid-19 patients in non-acute settings. RespiCare blends the clinical knowledge of respiratory rehabilitation in an app, with guidance from physiotherapists online to enable patients to carry on with their respiratory rehabilitation. Its a novel approach which would be used for the first time for respiratory rehab in India.
Scientific References
[1] https://telerehab.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/Telerehab/article/view/6083
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6199829/
[3] https://www.weahsn.net/wp-content/uploads/MyCOPD-RCT.pdf
