Effects of Chinese medicine for COVID-19 rehabilitation: a multicenter observational study

Abstract

Objectives This study aimed to evaluate the effects of Chinese Medicine (CM) on the health condition of the post-COVID-19 patients, particularly with the CM Syndrome diagnosis and Body Constitutions (BC), as well as related clinical characteristics. Methods 150 participants who had COVID-19 and discharged from Hong Kong public hospitals were recruited. They were provided with three to six months of CM treatments, during which assessments were made per month and at follow-up on their CM syndromes, BC, lung functions, and other medical conditions. This study was divided into two parts: (1) Retrospective survey: medical history of participants during COVID-19 hospitalization was collected during the baseline visit; (2) Prospective observation and assessments: clinical symptoms, lung functions, and BC status were evaluated in participants receiving CM treatment based on syndrome differentiation and clinical symptoms. Results The median hospitalization period was 16 days. Symptoms were presented in 145 (96.6%) patients at the day they were diagnosed with COVID-19. Fever, fatigue, and dry cough were the most common symptoms, exhibiting in 59.3% (89 of 150), 55.3% (83 of 150), and 46% (70 of 150) participants, respectively. Among the 150 post-COVID patients, majority (71.3%) were of the two particular post-COVID CM Syndromes (Qi Deficiency of Lung and Spleen, and Qi and Yin Deficiency). Upon CM treatment, there was an observable increase in participants reaching a balanced BC (i.e. healthy body conditions). The increase was observed to be more prominent in those without the particular CM Syndromes compared to those with the CM Syndromes. Main clinical symptoms in participants with the CM Syndromes decreased upon CM treatment. Occurrence of fatigue also dropped after CM treatment though not all accompanied clinical symptoms were resolved fully. Further to the improvement in terms of CM assessments, lung functions of the participants were found to show improvement after treatment. Both the performance in 6MWT and scores in the LFQ improved upon CM treatments (P < 0.05). Conclusion This study provided evidence for individualized CM treatment on COVID-19 rehabilitation concerning the clinical symptoms improvements, lung functions improvement, and achieving a balanced BC. It is believed that CM may be a key to further promote rehabilitation and resolution of residual symptoms. Long-term large scale follow-up studies on sub-categorising post-COVID patients according to different CM syndromes would be required to further elucidate treatment of persistent symptoms that may be associated with long-COVID.

Correction: Effects of Chinese medicine for COVID-19 rehabilitation: a multicenter observational study

“…Following publication of the original article [ 1 ], the authors would like to make corrections after identifying the errors below which were caused by typo mistakes and the latest update of data analysis prior to publication but updating on some texts and Fig. 6A correspondingly had been missed.…”

“…1186/ s13020-022-00654-z. *Correspondence: ldzhong@hkbu.edu.hk; bzxiang@hkbu.edu.hk 1 School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Corrected version: The statement "However, with each increased age year, the score obtained in LFQ will decrease by 0.11" has been removed.…”

Chinese medicine for residual symptoms of COVID-19 recovered patients (long COVID)—A double-blind, randomized, and placebo-controlled clinical trial protocol

“…To date, there are very few clinical studies of using TCM to treat the residual symptoms of COVID-19 recovered patients. A multi-center observational study in Hong Kong has shown that individualized TCM treatments could facilitate resolution of clinical symptoms (including fatigue, cough, shortness of breath, post-meal fullness, and loose stool), improve lung functions, and lead to healthier CM body constitutions in COVID recovered patients ( 21 ). A randomized controlled trial comparing a Chinese medicine (Qingjin Yiqi granules) combined with standard rehabilitation treatments (SRTs) against SRTs alone has also shown that the CM granules could assist reduction in fatigue and breathlessness ( 22 ).…”

Association of traditional Chinese medicine body constitution and cold syndrome with leukocyte mitochondrial functions: An observational study

“…[1,3,5–7] Recently, it has been used to evaluate the treatment effects of Chinese medicine on COVID-19 rehabilitation. [8]…”

“…[1,3,[5][6][7] Recently, it has been used to evaluate the treatment effects of Chinese medicine on COVID-19 rehabilitation. [8] In the CCMQ, body constitution is categorized into 1 balanced type and 8 unbalanced types (yang-deficiency, yin-deficiency, qi-deficiency, phlegm dampness, heat dampness, blood stasis, qi-stagnation, and inherited special). [1] A balanced constitution is a non-symptomatic or healthy type, whereas unbalanced types are in a suboptimal health state and are more susceptible to certain pathogenic factors and related diseases.…”