Hammer, Sabine, Schmidt, Julia, Conrad, Annett et al. · Zeitschrift fur Evidenz, Fortbildung und Qualitat im Gesundheitswesen · 2024 · DOI
German researchers asked 1,191 long COVID patients about their experiences with inpatient rehabilitation programs. About half reported their health got worse during rehabilitation, mainly from exercise programs that were too intense. The study found that standard rehabilitation designed for other illnesses often doesn't work for long COVID patients with post-exertional malaise, and programs should instead focus on teaching patients how to pace their activities safely.
This study directly addresses a critical gap in long COVID rehabilitation practice by centering patient experiences and highlighting that conventional rehabilitation protocols may be harmful for PEM-positive patients. The findings support the urgent need to redesign rehabilitation approaches specifically for long COVID and inform evidence-based guideline development that incorporates patient values—a core principle of evidence-based medicine often missing in rehabilitation studies.
This qualitative study does not establish causation or provide statistical representativeness; it captures subjective patient perspectives rather than measuring objective rehabilitation outcomes. The study cannot determine whether specific rehabilitation components are universally harmful or unsuitable, as responses reflect heterogeneous experiences without controlled comparison groups or standardized outcome measures.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Hammer, Sabine, Schmidt, Julia, Conrad, Annett, Nos, Carmen, Gellert, Corinna, Ellert, Claudia, et al. (2024). ["The idea of rehabilitation will have to be completely rethought for this illness" - Qualitative results of an online survey on patients' experiences with inpatient rehabilitation for post COVID-19 condition (long COVID)].. Zeitschrift fur Evidenz, Fortbildung und Qualitat im Gesundheitswesen. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.zefq.2024.05.007
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-hammer-2024-idea-rehabilitation,
author = {Hammer, Sabine and Schmidt, Julia and Conrad, Annett and Nos, Carmen and Gellert, Corinna and Ellert, Claudia and Nuding, Ute and Pochaba, Ilse},
title = {["The idea of rehabilitation will have to be completely rethought for this illness" - Qualitative results of an online survey on patients' experiences with inpatient rehabilitation for post COVID-19 condition (long COVID)].},
journal = {Zeitschrift fur Evidenz, Fortbildung und Qualitat im Gesundheitswesen},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.1016/j.zefq.2024.05.007},
note = {PubMed: 38890022},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hammer-2024-idea-rehabilitation},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hammer-2024-idea-rehabilitation
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