Comparing Functional Response in Patients with and without COVID-19 Admitted to Inpatient Rehabilitation: A Retrospective Study.

Objective s: To identify the self-care and mobility functional response in patients with and without COVID-19 who were admitted to inpatient rehabilitation.

Design: Cross-sectional retrospective multi-site study using data collected from routine care data from the Rehabilitation Registry of COVID-19 patients within twelve Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities across the United States from March 1 through December 31, 2020.

Results: Data included 11,734 patients admitted to one of the participating hospitals. Of the patients admitted, 868 had active or had recently recovered from COVID-19 prior to their admission to the rehabilitation hospital. Patients with active or who had recently recovered from COVID-19 were younger with a mean age 65.74 years, over half being male (60.0%) and White (64.4%); with significance seen in the African American population. Fewer patients with COVID returned home, and the majority in both groups had neurological diagnoses, longer lengths of stay, fewer minutes of therapy, and a lower functional response in the self-care domain.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates patients with active and recovered COVID-19 who received inpatient rehabilitation made significant gains in self-care and mobility. These findings suggest that a structured inpatient rehabilitation program may provide benefit in patients with active and recovered COVID-19.