A proposed exercise trial for long covid is being criticized by some of the patients the government-funded researchers want to study.
The trial is part of the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) initiative, funded by the government for $1.15 billion over four years. It aims to study long covid and help find treatments for the millions of people experiencing a range of long-lasting symptoms, including extreme fatigue, brain fog and shortness of breath.
The studyisunderone of five trial platforms that the National Institutes of Health and Duke Clinical Research Institute plan to start in the summer and fall. Each trial platform will study a different cluster of long-covid symptoms and test a range of interventions.
The exercise study protocol has not been finalized, but it will test physical therapy at different intensity levels, tailored to the patient’s capabilities, and aim toi mprove endurance, said Adrian Hernandez, executive director of Duke Clinical Research Institute.
He called early research on physical therapy “promising” but declined to cite specific studies. He estimated that exercise-based interventions could help up to half of long-covid patients.
Some long-covid advocates, however, say that any exercise trial could be potentially dangerous for long-covid patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome.
Continue reading