Coronavirus: Why surviving the virus may be just the beginning

https://www.bbc.com/news/53193835

Coronavirus: Why surviving the virus may be just the beginning

By Chris Morris
BBC Reality Check

3 July 2020

The first thing Simon Farrell can remember, after being woken from a medically induced coma, is trying to tear off his oxygen mask.
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It is not an unfamiliar story for anyone working in intensive care. The assault Covid-19 mounts on the most severely ill means patients are ventilated for longer, and require a deeper level of sedation, than the typical ICU patient.

That has produced "a lot of delirium, confusion and agitation", explains Dr Kulwant Dhadwal, a consultant who runs the intensive care unit at London's Royal Free Hospital.
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Even when that process is a success, it is only the beginning of a long process of physical and psychological recovery. And now the UK has moved past the peak of the virus, attention is turning to the huge challenge - both in the health service and in the community - of rehabilitating Covid-19 survivors.
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Tens of thousands of people around the UK are now setting out on that journey.

Some came close to death in intensive care units, others needed less intrusive hospital treatment to help them through the worst. All of them have had their lives changed by Covid-19.

But for the most seriously ill patients in intensive care, rehabilitation begins well before they are woken from a coma. Physical and psychological support has to be there from the start. Even when a patient is asleep, nurses and therapists will move their joints and their bodies to make sure they don't get too stiff.
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But the process with Covid-19 has proved even more delicate and difficult than normal, partly because so many ICU patients were on mechanical ventilators for extraordinarily long periods of time.

Many of them woke up profoundly weak, although some regained strength unexpectedly quickly.
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