"It's all about ensuring they have the least possible disability in the future and the fewest after-effects when they go home to their normal life." Long stints in intensive care often leave a patient with issues that can affect their quality of life, from severe muscle wastage, respiratory weakness and cognitive problems, to speech difficulties, memory loss and anxiety, among others.Īnd in such cases, rehabilitation is crucial, says Dr Ruben Juarez Fernandez, the 39-year-old rehabilitation specialist whose job is to assess a patient's needs on leaving intensive care. Recently, she's made a lot of progress - after more than eight weeks in hospital, she has finally managed to sit up and has started to eat on her own. Like many COVID-19 patients, she was heavily sedated, intubated and put on a ventilator before being discharged when she could breathe on her own.īut leaving intensive care was only the start of a long path to recovery, involving extensive rehabilitation which is still not over. but God has given me a bit more time," she says of the month she spent in intensive care as medics at Gregorio Maranon hospital battled to keep her alive.Īlthough still very unwell, she's come a long way since she was checked into the hospital. There were moments when I was struggling so hard to breathe that I couldn't communicate," she croaks, her voice barely audible. She is one of more the 235,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in Spain, one of the hardest-hit countries in the world.Īfter weeks of fighting off the illness, she considers herself lucky to have escaped death, in a country where more than 28,000 have perished from the disease.
Behind her, numbers on a screen carefully monitor her oxygen levels, the medics hovering nearby to see she doesn't overexert herself in her eagerness to talk.
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