Acute and chronic disorders associated with COVID
A University of Southampton study in the journal Brain Communications confirmed COVID-19’s ability to cause serious mental problems.
The work published last July, detailed that in 267 infected patients with neurological symptoms, 11% had delirium, 9% had psychosis and brain inflammation and 7% percent had other encephalopathies (any generalized disease of the brain that alters its function or structure).
“It was surprising that some of these conditions occurred together in the same patients.”
“This suggests that Covid-19 can affect multiple parts of the nervous system in the same patient,” explained lead author and neurologist Dr. Amy Ross-Russell.
Although these symptoms may decrease after suffering from the disease, in some people it causes lasting neurological problems.
“Most of these patients had relatively minor initial infections, such as a flu-like illness, but they have been left with a catalog of symptoms such as fatigue, mental confusion and pain in all their muscles,” explained Dr. David Strain, vice president of the British Medical Association Medical Academic Staff Committee.
However, a US report published last July in The Lancet warned of an impending dementia epidemic in people with prolonged COVID-19.
Neurological symptoms of COVID
The study, led by Roy Parker, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder, predicts that patients with substantial chronic brain inflammation, as can occur in prolonged COVID, could develop high levels of abnormal brain proteins. These proteins, known as tau, are strongly linked to dementia.