A telerehabilitation programme in post-discharge COVID-19 patients (TERECO): a randomised controlled trial.

Objectives To investigate superiority of a telerehabilitation programme for COVID-19 (TERECO) over no rehabilitation with regard to exercise capacity, lower limb muscle strength (LMS), pulmonary function, health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and dyspnoea. Design Parallel-group randomised controlled trial with 1:1 block randomisation. Setting Three major hospitals from Jiangsu and Hubei provinces, China. Participants 120 formerly hospitalised COVID-19 survivors with remaining dyspnoea complaints were randomised with 61 allocated to control and 59 to TERECO. Intervention Unsupervised home-based 6-week exercise programme comprising breathing control and thoracic expansion, aerobic exercise and LMS exercise, delivered via smartphone, and remotely monitored with heart rate telemetry. Outcomes Primary outcome was 6 min walking distance (6MWD) in metres. Secondary outcomes were squat time in seconds; pulmonary function assessed by spirometry; HRQOL measured with Short Form Health Survey-12 (SF-12) and mMRC-dyspnoea. Outcomes were assessed at 6 weeks (post-treatment) and 28 weeks (follow-up). Results Adjusted between-group difference in change in 6MWD was 65.45 m (95% CI 43.8 to 87.1; p Conclusions This trial demonstrated superiority of TERECO over no rehabilitation for 6MWD, LMS, and physical HRQOL. Trial registration number ChiCTR2000031834.