Kontakt 2025, 27(2):164-170 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2025.019

Post COVID challenges in chronic neurological conditions: exploring perceived symptoms and the potential effect of individual physiotherapySocial Sciences in Health - Original article

Klára Novotná^{1, 2, *}, Kristýna Dandová¹, Ivana Knapová², Dominika Šťastná¹, Ingrid Menkyová^{1, 3}, Eva Kubala Havrdová¹

¹ Charles University and General University Hospital in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience, Prague, Czech Republic

² General University Hospital in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic

³ Slovak Medical University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Background: COVID is described as having not only medical but also wider social consequences for society. Individuals may experience persistent health problems after infection. We aimed to find out whether people with chronic neurodegenerative disease (multiple sclerosis - MS) still perceive any complications after this infection. And the secondary aim was to offer them a physiotherapy.

Methods: In this single-centre study, people with MS who experienced COVID-19 between January and March 2022 were contacted and structurally asked about the occurrence of any post-COVID symptoms.

Results: In March 2023, 251 (75 men) people responded to the survey. The mean age of these people was 43.8 years (SD 8.9), and the mean disease duration 14.1 years (SD 8.3). A total of 76 people (22%) suffered from post-COVID symptoms lasting 12 weeks or longer. Most common symptoms included fatigue (55%), dyspnoe (26%), neurological deterioration (20%), and joint and muscle pain (18%).A total of 6 people participated in a pilot physiotherapy program.

Conclusion: Based on subjective reports, a considerable number of people with MS can suffer from post-COVID symptoms Our experience from a small pilot study showed that individual physiotherapy could probably relieve some of these difficulties. However, this would need to be verified in a larger sample. Knowledge of any persistent post-COVID difficulties can also help other health and social care professionals.

Keywords: COVID-19; Long-COVID; Multiple sclerosis; Physiotherapy; Post-COVID; Rehabilitation; Telerehabilitation

Grants and funding:

This study was supported by the Czech Ministry of Health project RVO-VFN64165 and the Czech Health Research Council (AZV) grant NU22-04-00193. The project has also received funding from the Czech Ministry of Education - project Cooperatio LF1, research area Neuroscience, and the project National Institute for Neurological Research (Programme EXCELES, ID project No LX22NPO5107), funded by the European Union-Next Generation EU.

Conflicts of interest:

D. Šťastná received financial support for conference travel, and/or speaker honoraria, and/or consulting fees from Novartis, Biogen, Merck, Bayer, Janssen-Cilag, and Pfizer. E. Kubala Havrdová received speaker honoraria, compensation for travel, and consultant fees from Biogen, Merck, Novartis, Sanofi, and Teva, as well as support for research activities from Biogen and Merck. None of the other authors have any conflict of interest to disclose.

Received: September 26, 2024; Revised: February 6, 2025; Accepted: March 17, 2025; Prepublished online: April 24, 2025; Published: June 23, 2025  Show citation