Memory and concentration problems plague 70% of patients with long COVID

Seven out of ten long-term COVID patients experienced concentration and memory problems months after acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, and many performed poorer on cognitive tests than other patients, according to COVID. Initial data from cognitive studies show.

Of the 181 long COVID patients, Dr. Lucy Cheke of the University of Cambridge said that 78% had difficulty concentrating, 69% had brain fog, 68% had oblivion, and 60% had trouble finding the right word when speaking. I said there is. In the UK and co-author.

Researchers reported that these symptoms were reflected in a significant reduction in the ability to remember words and pictures on cognitive tests. Frontier of Aging Neuroscience..

“This is one of the first studies to actively explore cognition with long COVIDs,” Cheke said. Today’s MedPage.. “We found that in people with advanced symptoms, their memory was significantly impaired.”

“We investigated the performance of various tasks, as well as how they relate to symptoms between acute and ongoing illnesses,” she continued. “Acute illness, a series of symptoms characterized by fatigue, chest pain, body pain, headache, and weakness of limbs experienced in the first three weeks of infection, has been found to predict cognitive and memory test outcomes. Up to 6 months later. “

“We also found that the experience of ongoing neurological symptoms such as disorientation, confusion, speech and visual impairment predicts both executive function and memory impairment,” Cheke added. “These findings help us narrow down the potential processes that cause cognitive impairment.”

COVID and cognitive studies included both cross-sectional and longitudinal data to help understand long-term COVID cognitive problems. Participants answered questions about demographics, medical history, health-related behaviors (such as smoking and exercise), and details about COVID-19 symptoms and experiences.

Participants were recruited from October 2020 to March 2021. As part of the study, we tested language and memory (incorporating variables for word lists, associative memory, and categorical fluency) and completed executive function tasks (including mental rotation and sorting of test variables). did. Their results were compared to similar people who had never been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

The analysis included 181 people (72% women) infected with SARS-CoV-2 and 185 people (64% women) not infected. Most people were infected with COVID-19 at least 6 months before the study began, and few were hospitalized.

Most participants (68%) infected with COVID were between the ages of 18 and 50. About three-quarters lived in the United Kingdom. Others lived in North America and other parts of the world. Most of the people in the study were white.

People infected with SARS-CoV-2 had poor memory variable performance after adjusting demographics, regardless of ongoing COVID symptoms. Upon closer inspection, infected individuals were found to have longer reaction times when performing verbal memory tasks.

Overall, those with more severe ongoing COVID symptoms scored worse on memory tasks than those who recovered. Both performance (percentage of correct answers) and reaction time of verbal memory were significantly affected by the severity of the ongoing disease in a dose-dependent manner.

The status of nonverbal associative memory was less clear, but pairwise analysis showed that people who had never been infected with SARS-CoV-2 performed better than those who had severe ongoing symptoms. It was shown that

A Another analysis A cluster of ongoing neurological, cardiopulmonary, malaise, gastrointestinal, autoimmune, mood, and anorexia symptoms has been shown to predict current cognitive impairment. People who were still experiencing neurological symptoms were particularly impaired in the cognitive test.

About half of people with long COVIDs say it’s difficult to get medical professionals to take their symptoms seriously. Seventy-five percent of people with severe ongoing symptoms said they could not work for long periods of time.

“Memory impairment can have a significant impact on people’s daily lives, including their ability to do their jobs properly,” said Muzaffer Kaser, MD, PhD, also co-author of the University of Cambridge. Today’s MedPage..

“Our findings suggest that a more comprehensive assessment is needed to understand the breadth of memory and other cognitive problems,” he said. “We will continue to follow participants, which will help identify which difficulties persist over time and which cognitive problems may be potential future treatment candidates.”

This study had some limitations, including self-reported dependence on symptoms. Cognitive tests that occurred during the pandemic blockade were conducted online.

Researchers plan to continue to track participants and show changes in symptoms and cognitive performance over time.We are also looking for groups Adults and children For additional evaluation of cognition and COVID-19.