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Not long ago, Allen Washington was a busy executive who traveled the country on business trips while trying to stay healthy and active, walking up to two miles a day for exercise.

But that came to an end when he developed Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, in June. Mr. Washington spent three weeks lying in a hospital bed in a medically induced coma. When he woke up, he discovered his body had deteriorated. He had bedsores and was too weak to walk or stand. He had nerve damage in his legs, neck and shoulders. He suffered from memory loss and kidney failure.

While he survived Covid-19, Mr. Washington, 60, is now grappling with the aftermath of the disease. To regain his strength and motor skills, he undergoes physical and occupational therapy at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago, which specializes in helping people who have been debilitated by Covid-19 and other illnesses. Since leaving the hospital, he has had to relearn simple tasks that became too difficult because of his memory loss and muscle weakness, like walking up stairs, tying his shoes and getting dressed in the morning.

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Art Medical has developed its smART+ Platform, an all-in-one solution that utilizes sensor-based feeding tubes and other smart disposables made by Art.

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Dr. Michelle Biehl, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, is among the experts quoted in this New York Times article about the difficult recoveries for many patients who were critically ill with COVID-19.

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Dennis Sionson was lacing up his Adidas one April morning when his world dimmed. The 57-year-old Navy man had battled sickness for several days, his exhaustion so severe that he finally green-lit a trip to the doctor with his wife, Teresa. Probably just a bad cold, he’d thought. But as the couple prepared to leave for the Naval Health Clinic near their Oak Harbor home, Dennis’s breaths grew shorter, his face paler. His vision faded and, in an instant, went completely dark, like someone had switched off the light. His wife watched him crumple to the floor.

The ambulance came quickly after Teresa’s 911 call, whisking Dennis away to WhidbeyHealth Medical Center. His plummeting oxygen level demanded a ventilator. For days the machine sustained him as he fought a raging case of Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus that had already hospitalized more than 2,000 Washingtonians by the time he arrived at the Coupeville facility on April 2.

Five days after his admittance, Dennis was helicoptered to University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle for more care. Some in the ICU feared that Dennis, tethered to a ventilator for weeks, wouldn’t make it. But over the next three and a half months, the hospital’s treatments would save Dennis, who ultimately suffered a stroke, lung injury, polyneuropathy, and brain damage.

Since the pandemic’s outset, few post-Covid patients have spent this much time rehabilitating the very basics of their being: walking, swallowing, breathing. Dennis wouldn’t leave the hospital until July 21.

Two months before that, he awoke to cheers. He’d finally tested negative for coronavirus. Staffers rejoiced. Dennis, meanwhile, couldn’t yet breathe on his own, let alone celebrate. Or speak.

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Of all his years, 2020 was exceptionally challenging for Vietnam veteran Matthew Thomas. After the 75-year-old Aurora resident tested positive for Covid-19 in mid-May, doctors had to intubate him for 33 days so he didn’t go into respiratory failure. While Thomas survived, his 33-year-old son, diagnosed with Covid-19 shortly before his father was hospitalized, passed away.

Thomas also faced widespread effects from Covid-19, stemming from the time spent intubated and in intensive care. “The byproduct of the disease is that my muscles went to sleep,” says Thomas, who says his muscles became so weak that he could not use his arms and legs.

“I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even stand up,” he says.

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In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, much of the public health messaging concerned flattening the curve, helping to prevent disease and lighten the load on hospitals caring for the sickest patients.

But what happens next, after the acute infection is over? Doctors are only beginning to understand how it can lead to maladies that persist long after the virus has been quelled.

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The first onslaught of the pandemic was the physical concerns brought about by the virus, but now we need to brace for the tidal wave of mental health concerns across all segments of our population that are expected to continue increasing for the next few months at least. By May, we had already seen a 20% rise in cases of mental health according to the Indian Psychiatric Society. The mental health concerns due to the pandemic may not just be immediate, but can also cause long term effects lasting for a minimum of 1-3 years.

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Susan Taylor knows she’s one of the lucky ones. She feels blessed to have survived COVID-19, but she also acknowledges that the ordeal is far from over.

She’s back at home after long weeks on a COVID-19 ward at Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital, followed by inpatient rehabilitation services at Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Richmond, but the Glen Allen resident has yet to regain full health.

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The long-term effects of surviving COVID-19 have become a new focus of attention for clinicians and researchers. This focus has been driven partly by concerns about late ill-effects of a previously unknown virus, but recognised generic patterns of chronic disease after critical illness also exist. These patterns are termed PICS, an acronym both for post-intensive care syndrome and for persistent inflammation, immunosuppression, and catabolism syndrome. We recommend unifying post-COVID-19 research aims with those of PICS research and propose a novel approach to its management by repurposing drugs that are approved, inexpensive, and safe.

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LONDON: A UK university is launching a major study into the potential link between vitamin D and protection against coronavirus.

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Health professionals urgently need more information and training to respond to the rising numbers of people in the UK living with so-called 'long Covid', which may not be one condition but several different syndromes, according to researchers.

They said the NHS and social care system was currently unequipped to meet the needs of this emerging patient group, and that greater understanding about the phenomenon and the different presentations was needed to help design appropriate services and shape the workforce.

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Coronavirus patients still suffering debilitating symptoms after seven months may be experiencing a mixture of post-viral fatigue syndrome, post-intensive care syndrome, permanent organ damage and long-term COVID syndrome, researchers claim.