COVID-19 causes cognitive problems during the first months after overcoming the disease

Slightly more than 50 percent of The patients in hospital for COVID-19 show Cognitive problems Two months after overcoming the disease, according to a study presented in the seventh edition of European Academy of Neurology Congress (EAN) from Vienna.

Of those affected, 16 percent had problems with executive functions – such as memory disorders s flexible thinking-, 6 per cent did not correctly distinguish contrast and depth of distances, the other 6 per cent had memory impairment and 25 per cent combined all symptoms.

The agency said in a statement that researchers in the study conducted in Italy repeated the same tests ten months after infection, and the percentage of patients with cognitive problems decreased to 36 percent.

On the other hand, the same study revealed that 20 percent of patients experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, while adding 16 percent Symptoms of depression.

Both conditions have been present for up to ten months after the infection has overcome.

These problems – both psychiatric and cognitive problems – were “more severe” in those younger than 50, especially for those who showed difficulties with executive functions.

Low performance of these functions was associated with seriousness severe respiratory symptoms of the coronavirus while patients are hospitalized, notes the conference note.

The head of the research, Massimo Felipe, from Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan (Italy), notes that changes in executive functions are “particularly worrisome” because they affect concentration and the ability to remember in three out of four people of working age.

“Long-term follow-up studies are needed, but this research suggests that Covid disease is associated with significant cognitive problems,” says Elisa Cano, a researcher at San Raffaele Hospital in Milan and co-author of the study.

Thus, Kanu stresses that it is “critical” to follow up and provide treatment to those affected in order to alleviate their symptoms, concludes the EAN statement.

Three other studies presented at the Vienna Congress support the results obtained by Italian scientists.

A study conducted by the Department of Neurosciences at the University of Milan, which performed autopsies of the brain stems of COVID-19 victims, in those brains revealed that a high proportion of nerve cell damage And the so-called “small lumps”, are abundant in neurodegenerative diseases.

Karazin University (Ukraine) followed 42 patients aged between 32 and 54 between two and four months after their admission to hospital and found that 95 percent had symptoms. Neurocognitive impairment, such as increased fatigue, worry a depression.

According to a study by the Maggiore Polyclinic in Milan, approximately 80 percent of 53 patients examined developed at least one neurological symptom and about 46 percent more than three symptoms, between five and ten months after leaving the hospital.

With information from EFE