Press Release
A daily ally to navigate Long COVID
Luxembourg Institute of Health launches Long COVID Companion App to support long-term health monitoring
The Luxembourg Institute of Health introduces Long COVID Companion, a first-of-its-kind app that was co-designed with patients, experts, and the association #apresJ20 Covid Long France. Offering tailored support for navigating Long COVID, it aids symptom tracking and contributes to ongoing research, reflecting LIH’s commitment to improving care and understanding COVID-19’s long-term impacts. The tool is expected to become a vital support for managing symptoms and enhancing quality of life.
The Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) has launched Long COVID Companion, a web app to help people with Long COVID track their symptoms, manage their condition, and improve their quality of life. Developed by Dr Aurélie Fischer, Scientific Coordinator at the Department of Precision Health at LIH, the Long COVID Companion was co-created with input from Long COVID sufferers, healthcare professionals, and patient partners from the association #ApresJ20 Covid Long France. This collaborative approach ensures that the app is tailored to meet the unique needs of individuals living with Long COVID.
COVID-19 can leave a lasting impact on some people, even after they have recovered from the initial infection. These lingering symptoms, known as Long COVID, can vary widely from person to person, making it a complex condition for researchers to understand. The Long COVID Companion app is a valuable tool that will help people with this condition track their experiences and contribute to ongoing research efforts.
Long COVID Companion serves as a daily support tool for adults with Long COVID, facilitating symptom management, visualizing health progression, and aiding discussions with healthcare professionals.
We are proud to launch the Long COVID Companion app, a vital resource designed to support individuals navigating the complexities of Long COVID. By co-designing this app with input from both patients and healthcare professionals, we aim to empower users to better manage their symptoms and improve their quality of life. Our commitment at the Luxembourg Institute of Health is to continually innovate and provide solutions that address the evolving needs of patients with chronic conditions like Long COVID,
explained Dr Aurélie Fischer, lead scientist of the Long COVID Companion app.
Long COVID Companion features several modules, including overall health tracking, symptom monitoring, a voice journal for recording how users feel, a medical and life journal for scheduling appointments and tracking activities, health progress visualization with PDF reporting, and information on Long COVID and support networks.
“Our #ApresJ20 Covid Long France association supports all those who suffer from Long Covid. As patients, we developed actions in favour of recognition, research, communication and access to care for all. We are dedicated to involve patients in research. The Long Covid Companion application was co-constructed by and with patients with Long Covid to better respond to patients’ needs. It is an essential step forward in helping patients to track and summarise their symptoms and facilitate the communication with health professionals but also contribute to the research on Long COVID,“ commented Pauline Oustric, President of #ApresJ20 Covid Long France.
Long COVID Companion is accessible for free as a web application, eliminating the need for downloads from app stores. Users can access it via computer, smartphone, or tablet by simply entering app.longcovidcompanion.org into their browser’s search bar.
Long COVID Companion is part of the “COVID-19, Vaccination & long-term health consequences of COVID-19 in Luxembourg” (CoVaLux) research program, coordinated by Research Luxembourg and a consortium of Luxembourgish research institutions, including the LIH. This unique project is providing important results that are helping to improve our understanding of the long-term impacts of COVID-19, while also leading to improvements in patient care.
Long COVID Companion DOES NOT constitute or is intended to be a medical diagnostic tool, a personal medical advice or treatment aid and under any circumstances it does not replace the opinion, diagnosis or recommendations of a healthcare professional.
About the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH)
The Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) is a public biomedical research organization focused on precision health and invested in becoming a leading reference in Europe for the translation of scientific excellence into meaningful benefits for patients.
LIH places the patient at the heart of all its activities, driven by a collective obligation towards society to use knowledge and technology arising from research on patient derived data to have a direct impact on people’s health. Its dedicated teams of multidisciplinary researchers strive for excellence, generating relevant knowledge linked to immune related diseases and cancer.
The institute embraces collaborations, disruptive technology and process innovation as unique opportunities to improve the application of diagnostics and therapeutics with the long-term goal of preventing disease.
About #apresJ20
#ApresJ20 – Association Covid Long France is run by Long Covid patients. Our aim is to provide information and support to sufferers and their families, and to work with healthcare professionals to ensure that the disease is recognized and better cared for.
The association’s objectives are:
- The recognition of Long Covid based on symptoms, not just on tests.
- To develop multidisciplinary care in all regions.
- The communication with doctors and the general public.
- To promote patients’ involvement in research.