The Role of Physical Deconditioning in Cardiological and Pulmonological Medical Practice

The examination of the patient with a recent episode of C19 and residual cardiorespiratory symptoms requires a complete two-line assessment of previously undiagnosed chronic pathology. As conventional investigations were insufficient in clarifying the remaining symptomatology, it was necessary to broaden the range of investigations and to take a different approach to this category of patients.

Depending on the symptoms and the patient’s general condition at the beginning of the examination, the attending physician should not disregard the period of restrictions involving significant limitations regarding exercise imposed during the pandemic. Physical exertion minimization and isolation at home have led to a series of functional disorders throughout the body, particularly cardio-respiratory, musculo-articular and neuro-psychiatric disorders.

The effects of a sedentary lifestyle or the lack of physical exertion are not limited to elderly individuals, nor to a single system or apparatus, but have undesirable consequences for the whole body. In this context, the pulmonologist was obliged to answer the question “does the patient have a previously undiagnosed chronic respiratory disease before COVID19 or is the patient physically deconditioned?”. This is how the cardio-respiratory exercise test - the stair-climbing exercise test - came into play in assessing this category of patients. As the medical rehabilitation units could not cope with all the patients, it was necessary to create a home-based rehabilitation programme that was cheap, fast, and allowing telephone monitoring and quantifiable results.