COVID-19 and hospital restrictions: physical disconnection and digital re-connection in disorders of consciousness.
Purpose: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic forced hospitals to adopt tighter restrictions, the most impacting is no access to visitors. Disorder of consciousness (DOC) due to severe acquired brain injury is a condition needing neurorehabilitation and the role of relatives is essential, hence besides physical "disconnection" digital "re-connection" is crucial. We aimed to assess whether digital communication benefits in patients with DOC, considering the sensorial and emotional deprivation due to the COVID-19 emergency lock-down.Methods: For eleven consecutive patients with DOC admitted to our Intensive Neurorehabilitation Care (mean age: 45; females: 9), two observers registered neurobehavioral changes during a video-calls with their relatives. Heart-rate variability was measured before and during the calls. The video-call was performed by using two displays of different sizes: tablet (T-video-call) and large screen (LS-Video-call).Results: The video-calls impacted on the patients' vigilance and in the relationship with relatives. Moreover, positively impacted on their relatives. The current results showed significant greater impact on patients during the LS-video-call than when they are exposed to T-video-call.Conclusions: During the COVID-19 pandemic, besides the physical disconnection to stop the contagion spread, a "digital re-connection" is needed for all and especially for fragile population groups as patients with DOC.
['Padua|Luca|L|', 'Fredda|Giulia|G|', 'Coraci|Daniele|D|0000-0002-7019-9006', 'Reale|Giuseppe|G|', 'Glorioso|Davide|D|', 'Loreti|Claudia|C|', 'Pecchioli|Cristiano|C|', 'Bernabei|Roberto|R|']
D000086382:COVID-19 D003140:Communicable Disease Control D003243:Consciousness D003244:Consciousness Disorders D005260:Female D006339:Heart Rate D006761:Hospitals D006801:Humans D008875:Middle Aged D058873:Pandemics D000086402:SARS-CoV-2
COVID-19 disorder of consciousness emotional deprivation personalized medicine rehabilitation