About Our New Long Covid Exercise Programme

Long Covid refers to a set of symptoms that persist for several months in a proportion (estimated at about 10%) of people infected by Covid-19.  Numerous symptoms may occur but the commonest are fatigue, shortness of breath, cough, palpitations and ‘brain fog’. 

Based on the 10% estimate, the absolute numbers affected by Long Covid in Ireland will be substantial (at least 114,500).  While not all will need to access the health services, we are faced with a significant burden of care to assist in guiding the recovery of Long Covid patients. Inability to exercise brings psychological as well as physical unwellness. This can be very distressing for these patients, especially those who were previously well and enjoyed a healthy pre-Covid lifestyle that included regular, often daily, exercise.

Our hope in ExWell is to work with scientific and medical colleagues to offer a Long Covid programme with 2 key aims, as follows:

1. To design a sensible approach to exercise prescription for this group, drawing on our experience with other illness cohorts

2. To develop an evidence-based method to guide decision-making in relation to readiness for exercise on a daily basis. 

We will be inviting long covid patients to help us in this work as we work to refine a ‘wellness score’ and an exercise challenge, both of which will contribute to the decision-making referenced above. For now, we have prepared a foundation level exercise class to try and we welcome any feedback on the class. If you are interested in joining our programme, please send an email to info@exwell.ie