Covid-19 Could Have Long-Term Neurological Impact, Recent Study Introduces published in the journal The Lancet. In patients with “long Covid”, as in people treated for the disease, there are thinking and memory disorders.
In total, 81,337 people were studied via an online questionnaire, between January and December 2020. Those who have recovered from Covid, and those who still have symptoms, presented “significant cognitive deficits”, notes the study.
They were about 13,000 of this total. Obviously, to come to this conclusion, other factors were taken into account: age, gender, level of education, other medical problems, fatigue, depression or anxiety. However, their intellectual capacities had not been studied upstream of their contamination.
More complicated for hospitalized patients
People who contracted Covid-19 testified that they found the issues more complex to resolve than others. In hospitalized patients, these deficits were found to be much greater than in those who had not experienced a severe form of the disease.
It remains to be seen whether this decline in cognitive faculties is explained by the virus itself and a potential neurological damage or by mental and physical fatigue following contamination. The researchers call for future research on the subject to study these observations through a brain imaging system to understand how Covid can affect the way the brain works.
Source: growing concern about possible cognitive consequences of COVID-19, The Lancet, July 22, 2021
Also read:
- Covid-19: it also attacks neurons
- “Mental fog”, a new symptom of long covid
