230 - Short-term recovery of motor strength after COVID-19 infection in a cohort of cardiopulmonary inpatient rehabilitation patients

Objectives: To analyze the impact of acute rehabilitation care on motor recovery of specific muscle groups among patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19 infection.

Design: In this retrospective study, we analyzed Manual Muscle Testing (MMT) scores among a cohort of 69 cardiopulmonary patients admitted to an acute rehabilitation facility following hospitalization with COVID-19. Scores were compared at admission versus discharge using Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests to determine the significance of improvements. For each muscle group, we also calculated the percentage of participants who had at least a Minimal Clinically Important Difference (MCID), which is defined as a score change of at least 1 whole point on a 5-point scale.

Results: All MMT exercises showed statistically significant improvement from admission to discharge. At admission, hip adduction had the lowest mean MMT score, and knee extension had the highest mean MMT score for both sides. By discharge, the greatest amount of clinically significant improvement was seen with hip extension on the left and hip adduction on the right, with 33.3% of participants reaching at least the MCID for left hip extension and 31.0% for right hip abduction. For both sides, foot dorsiflexion had the lowest amount of clinically significant change, with 11.9% of participants reaching at least the MCID in the left foot and 12.3% in the right foot.

Conclusions: Acute inpatient rehabilitation care can improve strength of all major muscle groups in patients who were recently hospitalized with COVID-19. However, recovery of certain motor functions may be limited, which emphasizes the importance of adequate nutrition and muscle use during acute hospitalization. Awareness of these limitations may allow providers to anticipate patient needs on discharge, such as an ankle foot orthosis for foot drop.