Physiotherapy – An effective treatment strategy for Covid19

World Physiotherapy Day is celebrated every year on 8 September to recognise the crucial contribution of physiotherapists to the world by keeping people well, mobile and independent. 2020 has been a pandemic year with novel corona virus attacking the respiratory system of the human body, thus this year’s theme was chosen as “Rehabilitation after severe Respiratory Illness”.

All around the world, physiotherapists have been working as COVID warriors to enable patients to get back to their daily lives. This corona virus mostly affects the lungs, but it has also shown to have its impact on brain leading to stroke. This further leads to immobilization, chest complications, limb stiffness and muscle weakness. Early intervention is required using chest physiotherapy to prevent severe respiratory illness like pneumonia.
Physiotherapists have been working with patients on ventilators to provide chest and limb physiotherapy. They also enhance quality of life of COVID patients by prescribing exercises. These work on lung recovery by managing breathlessness, coping with fatigue by muscle strengthening and getting them moving again by mobilizations. COVID19 being a highly infectious disease, it has shown increasing use of Teletherapy. Teletherapy is an online way of delivery of therapy to patients located remotely from the therapists. This method has proved to be an effective treatment strategy for those requiring immediate supervision of the physiotherapist and continue with the follow ups. 

In the view of maintaining social distancing, many private clinics have celebrated physiotherapy day virtually. During this pandemic, Dr Jasneet Kaur, has continued to provide therapy to some of her Pediatric patients at clinic and some others using teletherapy. On 8 September she organised an online awareness camp to celebrate the World Physiotherapy Day.

Article by Dr. Jasneet Kaur, Pediatric Physiotherapist ,
MPT, Trained Neurodevelopmental& Sensory Integration Therapist, Wings Pediatric Physiotherapy Center at Lulla Nagar, Pune. To know more call on 94055 76725