Effects of telerehabilitation applied during COVID-19 isolation period on overweight and obese individuals

The aim of our study was to examine the effects of exercise training through telerehabilitation applied during COVID-19 isolation period on overweight and obese individuals on physical fitness, fatigue, shortness of breath, sleep quality, anxiety and depression level, and quality of life. In our study, 41 people between the ages of 18-65 and whose BMI values were 25 kg / m2 and above were randomly divided into two groups as telerehabilitation (n: 21) and control group (n: 20). Exercise training applied to the telerehabilitation group with remote live connection included warm-up-cooling exercises, trunk stabilization exercises and breathing exercises under the supervision of an experienced physiotherapist for 6 weeks, 3 days in a week. The control group was informed about the importance of exercise only one session and evaluated at the beginning and after 6 weeks showing one session of breathing exercises. The physical fitness levels of individuals; Senior Fitness Test protocol, fatigue levels; The Fatigue Severity Scale, shortness of breath; Modified Medical Research Council Dyspnea Scale, sleep quality; the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, anxiety and depression levels; The Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale, quality of life, Short Form-36 was assessed by. As a result of the study, statistically significant improvements were obtained in all parameters of physical fitness, fatigue, shortness of breath, sleep quality, anxiety and depression level, and quality of life in the telerehabilitation group (p <0.05). In the difference values of the two groups, physical fitness and all parameters of quality of life, fatigue, shortness of breath, anxiety, depression and sleep quality's; global score, subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, daytime sleep disfunction parameters were observed that there were statistically significant differences in favor of telerehabilitation (p <0.05). As a result, it was found that exercise training applied through telerehabilitation during the covid-19 pandemic process was an effective, safe and applicable approach in overweight and obese individuals. In the future, studies investigating the long-term effectiveness of telerehabilitation in this population are needed.