Bedsores, a huge decrease in muscle strength and a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These are just a few complaints that corona patients can suffer from for a long time if they have been in intensive care (IC) for a long time. In conversation with NU.nl, Coen van Bennekom, rehabilitation doctor at rehabilitation center Heliomare, explains which complaints corona patients suffer after they have left the ICU.
Van Bennekom knows that the turning point will come after about four days for corona patients who have been hospitalized. It is continuously monitored how much oxygen a patient has in the blood and after four days it either goes better or it suddenly goes much worse.
If it suddenly gets worse, recording on the IC is often necessary. Corona patients have to go to respiration there because they do not receive enough oxygen on their own. Connecting and inserting the ventilator is not a pleasant experience, so patients are put into a coma.
According to Van Bennekom, this causes patients to experience confusion and PTSD after recovery from their ICU admission. “They are brought to IC from one moment to the next. For non-COVID patients, an IC admission is often announced, but because corona patients are deteriorating so quickly, they cannot.”
“Patients wake up in fear”
The nurses in intensive care are all wearing protective clothing, so they are not recognizable. “During those exciting moments, family cannot be present. Patients are put into a coma in fear and as a result they often wake up in fear,” said the rehabilitation doctor, who is also involved in research into the rehabilitation process of COVID patients.
After leaving intensive care, corona patients almost all need psychological help, Van Bennekom sees. “But that also applies to their relatives. They still have the idea that their husband or wife is dying and they cannot be present at the IC. That is very difficult for them.”
In addition to anxiety disorders, former corona patients who have been on the IC also suffer from confusion and concentration problems. “They are disoriented and have difficulty reasoning and organizing. Often they no longer know what day or date it is,” says the professor by special appointment at the University of Amsterdam.