A Self-Management Platform for Long COVID Rehabilitation

Content produced by the award-winning Long Covid Rehab Team at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, and by global digital exemplars, Salford Royal NHS Trust, and the Northern Care Alliance NHS Trusts. Free to access for everyone.

Post (acute) COVID-19 Syndrome is also called Long COVID. It describes the signs and symptoms that develop during or following an infection consistent with COVID-19, which continue for more than 12 weeks and are not explained by an alternative diagnosis.

The disease is new, so much about it is still not fully understood, though it is a large focus of research. The condition usually presents with clusters of symptoms, with over 205 reported and often overlapping, these may change over time and can affect any system within your body.

The severity of your illness after catching COVID-19 does not indicate whether you will go on to develop Long COVID. In other words, you may have a mild dose of COVID-19 and then develop Long COVID; or you may have been severely ill with COVID-19 and then suffer no longer term after effects.

C19-YRS.me aims to serve as an online free repository of useful educational material and rehabilitation content to support staff, patients, and relatives of patients to learn more about the condition and how they may wish to self-manage the condition at home.

The first iteration of the platform is centred around the Long Covid Rehabilitation Booklet which has been developed by the award-winning Long Covid Rehab Team at Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust partnership using content from the Liverpool Chest & Heart Foundation, which has been developed into this website by ELAROS. This website will continue to evolve rapidly by incorporating additional resources developed by various clinical partners, health experts, and national organisations. 

We do not claim to have all the answers to tackling this complex and new condition, nor are we offering a one-stop solution to self-management of long COVID. However, what we do offer is access to up-to-date content produced by world-leaders in the field and links to other free resources such as resources from Your Covid Recovery, and the World Health Organisation.

For healthcare organisations looking for a packaged solution for the initial assessment, triage, and ongoing monitoring and rehabilitation of long COVID patients using nationally-recommended, clinically-validated tools, visit C19-YRS.com for more information on how ELAROS, The University of Leeds, and the Leeds NHS partnership is tackling this.

This website contains a broad array of rehabilitation advice and information specifically designed to help people suffering from Long-COVID. You can learn more about this in the about section.

This information is categorised into different symptom and impact areas, and can be navigated through using the page buttons and section menus. You can find each area in the resources bar of the top menu or you can use the symptom menu below to find to whichever symptoms you need help with.

Who can it help?

This platform may be useful for:

Patients with Long COVID who wish to educate themselves on the condition and access self-management tools

Carers or relatives of patients with long COVID to learn more about the condition to support someone they know with the condition

Members of staff who wish to access educational and rehabilitation content, and links to other national resources on long COVID to support their patients 

Non-English speaking patients who need to access translated content to support their learning and self-management of the condition

Users of the C19-YRS app and/or C19-YRS outcome measure who need to access an online version of this content

Resources for Adults

The symptom advice on this website is for the most common symptoms of Long-COVID, but it’s possible that you may be experiencing symptoms that are not mentioned here. If you are in need of support with any symptoms not mentioned above, then you may find our useful links can direct you to advice that is specific to your issue. There are also Long-COVID support groups that may be able to help you find resources or professional advice.

None of the information on this website is a substitute for the recommendations of medical professionals, and you should always consult your GP about any concerns you have in relation to your condition.

Resources for Children and Young People

This information is aimed at young people aged 12 years and above and their parents/carers. We recommend that children read this information with their parents/carers. Parents/carers may find the information useful to help younger children by adapting the strategies to suit a younger age group.

If you have had COVID you might have symptoms that last for more than four weeks or several months. This is sometimes called long COVID, which is commonly used to describe signs and symptoms that continue or develop after an acute COVID infection for over 4 weeks, that cannot be explained by an alternative medical diagnosis.  This information gives you some ideas of things you can do to make sure that you or your child get back to your normal activities as easily and quickly as possible. If you are concerned that you are not getting better, please speak to your GP.

Contributors