New research has examined the persistent neurological and cognitive symptoms of Covid-19 infection in non-hospitalised patients, with ‘long Covid’ defined by the researchers as symptoms lasting more than 6 weeks.
A diagnosis of Covid-19 was associated with depression and anxiety in 42% of cases. Fatigue was also experienced by 85% of patients, ‘brain fog’ by 81%, headache by 68%, numbness and tingling by 60%, dysgeusia (altered or loss of sense of taste) by 59% and anosmia (loss of sense of smell) by 55%. Myalgias (muscle aches) were also reported by 55%.
Patients who had experienced Covid-19 were also found to perform worse on memory and attention tasks than matched controls.
Fatigue and cognitive impairment were concluded by the researchers to impair quality of life in patients following a Covid-19 infection.
To access the full article, visit https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acn3.51350.
Reference: Graham, E.L., Clark, J.R., Orban, Z.S., Lim, P.H., Szymanski, A.L., Taylor, C., DiBiase, R.M., Jia, D.T., Balabanov, R., Ho, S.U., Batra, A., Liotta, E.M., & Koralnik, I.J. (2021). Persistent neurologic symptoms and cognitive dysfunction in non-hospitalized Covid-19 “long haulers”. Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, 8(5), 1073 – 1085.
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