Rehabilitation Therapy after the COVID-19 Era: Focused on Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation

In the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) era, the roles of rehabilitation to be played in medical system are more emphasized. Rehabilitation is known to help patients recover from the acute period after COVID-19 infection. In addition, studies reported that rehabilitation is required to return patients’ physical function to the state before their infection. Intensive care unit rehabilitation in the acute period and cardiopulmonary rehabilitation in the recovery period have the same principles and techniques as those of applied for frail elderly. Rehabilitation therapy requiring a lot of physical contact and medical equipment is vulnerable to infection. Therefore, it is required to follow thoroughly guidelines about infection, such as wearing a mask, making a two-meter distance between patients, sterilization of medical equipment, and limiting visitors. And after the COVID-19 era, the operation of rehabilitation therapy and its details will be changed; firstly, to reduce complexity of a therapy room, rehabilitation therapy in wards will be enhanced; secondly, more medical equipment for enhancing rehabilitation therapy in wards will be developed and increased; thirdly, in a therapy process, the direct contact will be minimized, and therapy guides using smart equipment will be increased; fourthly, particularly, in the cardiorespiratory rehabilitation area, non-contact tele-rehabilitation techniques, rather than outpatient based rehabilitation therapy, will be developed and applied; fifthly, in order to execute rehabilitation therapies that may cause a high concern over droplet infection, it will be required to consider special therapy facilities like negative pressure isolation room when a rehabilitation hospital or ward will be designed.