Evidence-Based National Consensus: Recommendations for Physiotherapy Management in COVID-19 in Acute Care Indian Setup

Background: With the Wuhan pandemic spread to India, more than a lakh of population were affected with COVID-19 with varying severities. Physiotherapists participated as frontline workers to contribute to management of patients in COVID-19 in reducing morbidity of these patients and aiding them to road to recovery. With infrastructure and patient characteristics different from West and lack of adequate evidence to existing practices, there was a need to formulate a national consensus. Materials and methods: Recommendations were formulated with a systematic literature search and feedback of physiotherapist experiences. Expert consensus was obtained using a modified Delphi method. Results: The intraclass coefficient of agreement between the experts was 0.994, significant at p < 0.001. Conclusion: This document offers physiotherapy evidence-based consensus and recommendation to planning physiotherapy workforce, assessment, chest physiotherapy, early mobilization, preparation for discharge planning, and safety for patients and therapist in acute-care COVID 19 setup of India. The recommendations have been integrated in the algorithm and are intended to use by all physiotherapists and other stakeholders in management of patients with COVID-19 in acute care settings.