Authors Tessa Strain, Miriam Alvarado, Flora Jackson, Leandro Garcia, Michael P Kelly, and Paul Kelly Purpose of this blog The COVID-19 pandemic saw whole population health protection policies, such as containment strategies or vaccine roll-outs, implemented in many countries at an unprecedented scale. Sometimes these policies were enshrined in law, sometimes they were public health […]
Tag: COVID-19
Managing the Post-COVID-19 Syndrome
Harnessing the Power of Home-based Exercise Interventions Keywords: quality of life, functional capacity, exercise training Why is this study important? The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently announced that COVID-19 no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. This, however, does not mean the end of the pandemic or of its short and […]
Higher Rates of Concussion Following COVID-19 Infection in High School Athletes
Keywords: COVID-19, head injury, athletes In this blog we will detail how we found that high school athletes that contracted COVID-19 were over three times more likely to have a concussion following return to sport, compared to their fellow high school athletes. Our study (recently published in BJSM) was a grassroots initiative, spurred by sports […]
Graduated Return to Play after SARS-CoV-2 infection – what have we learned and why we’ve updated the guidance
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has provided a constant challenge to sport with varying protocols and regulations across the globe. In October 2020, we published a graduated return to play protocol 1 to aid colleagues and athletes resume safe exercising and training ahead of return to competition. With the imminent Tokyo Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, it […]
Long COVID on a long leash – let’s embrace the multidisciplinary approach
Athletes and Post-COVID-19 condition For more than a year now the whole world has been fighting the COVID-19 crisis. WHO declared a pandemic on March 11 and it is still ongoing. The great hope is in massive vaccination but the real end is still not clear. What seemed a “simple” respiratory infection at the beginning […]
Travel for Elite Athletes During COVID-19 – A Graphical Guide
This graphical guide outlines current evidence-based recommendations on travelling in elite sport during the coronavirus pandemic. This serves only as a guide; given the dynamically changing situation, any newly released recommendations should be taken into account. General Travel Guidance – key considerations: At the time of writing (March 2021) travel is generally only recommended for […]
How can we identify increased risk contacts in sport? The multi-sport COVID-19 risk exposure framework
The Team Sport Risk Exposure Framework-2 (TS-REF-2) to Support the Identification of Increased Risk Contacts in Sport during the COVID-19 Pandemic During the COVID-19 pandemic professional sports have continued to run competitive leagues whilst aiming to reduce potential SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Delivering competitions becomes a challenge when matches are cancelled, postponed or forfeited due to COVID-19 […]
Competing Against COVID-19: have we forgotten about student-athletes’ mental health?
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, competitive athletes have expressed substantial grief and frustration attributed to alterations in routine, limited or modified training, and the postponement of international competitions, such as the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and international championship events [1,2]. The additional strain from the removal of team support networks, which are often […]
Physical activity in a pandemic: Time for a new definition #Infographic
A new holistic and inclusive definition of physical activity might help us think differently Health behaviours have been drastically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Both the increase in sedentary behavior (characterized by low energy expenditure such as sitting time) and the levels of physical inactivity1,2 (people not meeting the recommended level of regular physical activity) are notable […]
“Return to exercise” – helping patients to overcome the long tail of covid-19.
Exercise remains a key component of rehabilitation for patients recovering from covid-19. However, there is limited guidance on how to start and progress exercise in non-athlete populations in the post-acute period of infection. We discuss if specific “return to exercise” protocols could help to solve this problem and return patients in the general population back […]