The Impact of Different Exercise Modes in Fitness and Cognitive Indicators: Hybrid versus Tele-Exercise in Patients with Long Post-COVID-19 Syndrome

• Published in: Brain sciences Vol. 14; no. 7; p. 693
• Main Authors: Stavrou, Vasileios T, Vavougios, George D, Astara, Kyriaki, Mysiris, Dimitrios S, Tsirimona, Glykeria, Papayianni, Eirini, Boutlas, Stylianos, Daniil, Zoe, Hadjigeorgiou, Georgios, Bargiotas, Panagiotis, Gourgoulianis, Konstantinos I
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 11-07-2024
• Subjects: Biomarkers; Body composition; Body mass index; Brain; Carbon monoxide; cognitive; Cognitive ability; COVID-19; Disease; Dyspnea; Event-related potentials; Exercise; Fatigue; hybrid exercise; Neural networks; Oxidative stress; Physical fitness; Physical fitness tests; Rehabilitation; Respiration; Respiratory function; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; tele-exercise; tele-rehabilitation; Telemedicine; United States > US; Germany; COVID-19; tele-exercise; tele-rehabilitation; hybrid exercise; cognitive
• ISSN: 2076-3425; 2076-3425
• DOI: 10.3390/brainsci14070693

The purpose of our study was to obtain evidence that an unsupervised tele-exercise program (TE
) via an online platform is a feasible alternative to a hybrid mode of supervised and unsupervised exercise (HE
) sessions for improving fitness indexes, respiratory and cognitive functions, and biomarkers of oxidative stress in patients recovering from COVID-19. Forty-nine patients with long post-COVID-19 were randomly divided into two groups (HE
: n = 24, age 60.0 ± 9.5 years versus TE
: n = 25, age 58.7 ± 9.5 years). For each patient, we collected data from body composition, oxidative stress, pulmonary function, physical fitness, and cognitive function before and after the 12-week exercise rehabilitation program (ERP). Our data showed differences in both groups before and after 12-week ERP on fitness indicators, body composition, and pulmonary function indicators. Our findings demonstrated differences between groups after 12-week ERP on adjustment in the domains of cognitive function (HE
increased the "visuospatial" domain: 3.2 ± 1.1 versus 3.5 ± 0.8 score,
= 0.008 and TE
increased the "memory" domain: 3.3 ± 1.0 versus 3.8 ± 0.5 score,
= 0.003; after 12-week ERP showed differences between groups in domain "attention" TE
: 4.8 ± 1.5 versus HE
: 3.6 ± 1.8 score,
= 0.014) and the diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide (HE
increased the percent of predicted values at 0.5 ± 32.3% and TE
at 26.0 ± 33.1%,
< 0.001). These findings may be attributed to the different ways of learning exercise programs, resulting in the recruitment of different neural circuits.