Mapping Occupational Therapy Interventions in Adult Patients with Post-COVID Diagnosis: A Scoping Review

Importance: Post-COVID patients experience difficulties in their everyday lives due to the persistent nature of their symptoms. This scoping review explores the role of occupational therapists in treating post-COVID patients and examines occupational therapy intervention options for this population.

Objective: This scoping review seeks to answer the following questions: What does the literature say about the role of occupational therapy with post-COVID patients? Which rehabilitation interventions are currently being utilized for treatment? How often are occupational therapists involved in the treatment of and research of post-COVID patient care?

Data Sources: Articles were obtained through an exhaustive search in the following databases: Ovid - Medline, Scopus, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library.

Study Selection and Data Collection: Articles included were required to be within the scope of occupational therapy practice, address post-COVID patients, use an intervention method, have full-text article available in English.

Findings: Overall, 33 articles met inclusion criteria. Six articles had occupational therapy involvement in treatment while the remaining articles did not specify occupational therapy involvement but were options for occupational therapists.

Conclusions & Relevance: Occupational therapists are infrequently engaged in research regarding post-COVID patients despite many of the interventions falling within the occupational therapy scope of practice. Interventions commonly used with post-COVID patients that fall within occupational therapy’s scope of practice included therapeutic exercise, pulmonary exercise, client education, mental health interventions, functional training, and cognitive training.