August 16,2022
AN average of more than four months after having COVID-19, participants most frequently reported experiencing fatigue and headaches, according to researchers.
The subsequent symptoms in the long list of persistent symptoms included muscle aches, coughing, changes in taste and smell, fever, chills, and nasal congestion.
The Medical College of Georgia researchers reports their findings in the journal ‘Science Direct’. “Our results confirm the emerging evidence that there are chronic neuropsychiatric effects following COVID-19 infections,” they write.
“There are many symptoms that we did not know what to make of early in the epidemic,” says Dr Elizabeth Rutkowski, an MCG neurologist and the study’s corresponding author. “But now it’s evident there is a lengthy COVID condition and that a lot of people are afflicted.”
The 200 patients in the first visit of the CONGA, or COVID-19 Neurological and Molecular Prospective Cohort Study in Georgia, were recruited on average about 125 days after testing positive for the COVID-19 virus. The published study presents preliminary findings from the first visit of these patients.
Severity and prognosis of neurological issues
Aiming to enrol 500 people over a five-year period, CONGA was developed at MCG early in the pandemic in 2020 to investigate the severity and prognosis of neurological issues.
Eighty per cent of the initial 200 individuals reported neurological symptoms, with fatigue leading the way at 80.5 per cent, followed closely by a headache at 68.5 per cent. A little more than half of the participants (54.5 per cent) and tasters (54 per cent) reported changes, and 47 per cent of them met the standards for mild cognitive impairment, with 30 per cent showing poor vocabulary and 32 per cent having impaired working memory.
In addition to their experience with COVID-19, 21 per cent of individuals also reported disorientation, and hypertension was the most prevalent medical condition.
Although no participants reported having had a stroke, coordination issues, muscle weakness, or an inability to regulate speaking muscles, these were some of the less often reported symptoms.
Twenty-five per cent of the participants fit the criteria for depression, and those who did were more likely to have diabetes, obesity, sleep apnea, and a history of depression. The 18% who fulfilled the objective criteria for anxiety had anaemia and a history of depression.
Although the results to date are not shocking and are in line with what other researchers are discovering, according to Rutkowski, it was interesting that participant symptoms frequently did not match what objective testing revealed. Additionally, it was reciprocal. The majority of subjects, for instance, claimed changes in taste and smell, but results of empirical tests of these senses did not always support their claims. According to objective measurements, a higher percentage of people who did not report the changes actually showed signs of reduced function, the researchers wrote.
SOURCE : ANI