Turkish Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2021 , Vol 67 , Num 1

Role of rehabilitation in a COVID-19 survivor with intensive care unit-acquired weakness: A case report

Firdevs Ulutaş 1 ,Sena S.N. Öztekin 2 ,Füsun Ardıç 2
1 Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, Pamukkale University Faculty of Medicine, Denizli, Turkey
2 Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Pamukkale University Faculty of Medicine, Denizli, Turkey
DOI : 10.5606/tftrd.2021.7457 Intensive care unit-acquired weakness (ICU-AW) is a catastrophic and debilitating clinical condition that causes generalized weakness and predisposes to adverse short- and long-term outcomes. Novel coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has been a global pandemic since November 2019. Each additional ICU admission for COVID-19 stresses intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital capacity. Accurately designed, timely rehabilitation procedures may reduce the patient burden of ICUs and hospitals. In this article, we describe a COVID-19 survivor who developed acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and ICU-AW. Early pulmonary rehabilitation in the ICU and long-term rehabilitation maintenance after the ICU and hospital discharge resulted in a positive outcome. Keywords : COVID-19, intensive care unit-acquired weakness, rehabilitation