Cognitive impairment, anxiety and depression: a map of Cochrane evidence relevant to rehabilitation for people with post COVID-19 condition

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Currently, no evidence exists on specific treatments for post COVID-19 condition (PCC). However, rehabilitation interventions that are effective for similar symptoms in other health conditions could be applied to people with PCC. With this overview of systematic reviews with mapping, we aimed to describe the Cochrane evidence on rehabilitation interventions proposed for cognitive impairment, anxiety and depression in different health conditions that can be relevant for PCC. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION We searched the last five years’ Cochrane Systematic Review (CSRs) using the terms “cognitive impairment,” “depressive disorder,” “anxiety disorder,” their synonyms and variants, and “rehabilitation” in the Cochrane Library. We extracted and summarized the available evidence using a map. We grouped the included CSRs for health conditions and interventions, indicating the effect and the quality of evidence. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS We found 3596 CSRs published between 2016 and 2021, and we included 17 on cognitive impairment and 37 on anxiety and depression. For cognitive impairment, we found 7 CSRs on participants with stroke, 3 with cancer, 2 with Parkinson’s disease, and one each for five other health conditions. Each intervention improved a different domain, and included exercises, cognitive and attention-specific training, and computerized cognition-based training (from very low to high-quality evidence). For anxiety and depression, we found 10 CSRs including participants with cancer, 8 with stroke, 3 with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and 2 or 1 each in 11 other health conditions. Exercise training, physical activity and yoga resulted effective in several pathologies (very low- to moderate-quality evidence). In specific diseases, we found effective acupuncture, animal-assisted therapy, aromatherapy, educational programs, home-based multidimensional survivorship programs, manual acupressure massage, memory rehabilitation, non-invasive brain stimulation, pulmonary rehabilitation, and telerehabilitation (very low- to moderate-quality evidence). CONCLUSIONS These results are the first step of indirect evidence able to generate helpful hypotheses for clinical practice and future research. They served as the basis for the three recommendations on treatments for these PCC symptoms published in the current WHO Guidelines for clinical practice.

The occupational burnout among medical staff with high workloads after the COVID-19 and its association with anxiety and depression

“…However, due to the immense workload, they often cannot get sufficient time for recovery before returning to the hospital, leading to prolonged exhaustion. Furthermore, a substantial body of previous research has also confirmed that health condition was a significant contributing factor to various emotional disorders (50)(51)(52)(53)(54). Therefore, health condition was also a crucial factor contributing to burnout among healthcare workers during this period.…”

Novel Multimodal Salicylamide Derivative with Antidepressant-like, Anxiolytic-like, Antipsychotic-like, and Anti-Amnesic Activity in Mice

“…Patients with psychiatric and mood disorders very often suffer from cognitive deficits. Learning and memory impairments occur in patients with schizophrenia [ 70 , 71 , 72 ] as well as in depressed patients and people with anxiety [ 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 ]. Therefore, we examined the potential procognitive and anti-amnesic effects of JJGW07 in the passive avoidance task in mice.…”

Acupuncture as an Additional Method of Rehabilitation Post-COVID-19: a randomized controlled trial

“…Cordani et al published a Cochrane Systematic review of rehabilitation for people with PCC with cognitive impairment, anxiety, and depression, which included 17 reviews on cognitive impairment and 37 on anxiety and depression. As a result, they found that acupuncture was effective (very low- to moderate-quality evidence) for the rehabilitation of specific diseases [ 27 ].…”