Influence of vaccination status and sarcopenia on the need for physical rehabilitation in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2

The effects of COVID-19 are not restricted to the acute phase of the disease, and complications are common after the infection has resolved. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of vaccination status and post-COVID sarcopenia on the need for physical rehabilitation in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. A case-control study was carried out in the city of Ouro Preto, Brazil, which has a centralized public health system. The cases were patients of the city’s post-COVID clinic who underwent rehabilitation, and the controls were COVID-19 patients randomly selected from the population who did not need rehabilitation. Directed acyclic graph (DAG) and logistic regression were used to analyze the data. The presence of post-COVID sarcopenia increased the chances of needing rehabilitation (OR 2.14), along with age over 60 (OR 4.26) and hospitalization during the acute phase of the disease (OR 16.7). Vaccination with three or more doses reduces the need for rehabilitation (OR 0.1), while the presence of comorbidities increases the need for it (OR 4.18). It is important for health care systems to be prepared for the rehabilitation needs of post-COVID patients. Our results reinforce the importance of vaccination in reducing the sequelae of COVID-19 and the need for greater attention in the post-Covid phase to older people and those with prior comorbidities, as well as to patients who have been hospitalized and who have post-COVID musculoskeletal symptoms.