Telemonitoring in Long-COVID Patients-Preliminary Findings

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the high usefulness of telemedicine. To date, no uniform recommendations or diagnostic protocols for long-COVID patients have been developed. This article presents the preliminary results of the examination of patients after SARS-CoV-2 infection who were provided with medical telemonitoring devices in order to oversee their pulmonological and cardiological health. Three cases have been analyzed. Each patient underwent a 10-day registration of basic vital signs, in three 15-min sessions daily: RR (respiratory rate), ECG (electrocardiogram), HR (pulse), SPO2 (saturation), body temperature and cough. Rule methods and machine learning were employed to automatically detect events. As a result, serious disorders of all the three patients were detected: cardiological and respiratory disorders that required extended diagnostics. Furthermore, average values of the selected parameters (RR, HR, SPO2) were calculated for every patient, including an indication of how often they exceeded the alarm thresholds. In conclusion, monitoring parameters in patients using telemedicine, especially in a time of limited access to the healthcare system, is a valuable clinical instrument. It enables medical professionals to recognize conditions which may endanger a patient's health or life. Telemedicine provides a reliable assessment of a patient's health status made over a distance, which can alleviate a patient's stress caused by long-COVID syndrome. Telemedicine allows identification of disorders and performing further diagnosis, which is possible owing to the implementation of advanced analysis. Telemedicine, however, requires flexibility and the engagement of a multidisciplinary team, who will respond to patients' problems on an ongoing basis.