According to a study published on Tuesday, a third of coronavirus patients suffer from psychiatric or brain problems within six months of being diagnosed with COVID-19.
The researchers analyzed the health records of 236,379 patients with COVID, mostly in the United States, and found that 34% were diagnosed with neurological or psychiatric disorders after six months.
About one in eight patients, or 12.8 percent, were first diagnosed with such a disease, the study said.
Anxiety, at 17%, and depression or mood disorders, at 14%, were the most common diagnoses, according to research.
Cases of post-COVID stroke, dementia and other neurological disorders have been rarer, but still significant – especially in people who have been severely ill with the virus, the scientists said.
Of those admitted to intensive care with coronavirus, 7% had a stroke within six months. Nearly 2 percent were diagnosed with dementia, the study found.
The disorders were significantly more common in patients with COVID than in the comparison groups of people who recovered from influenza or other respiratory infections over the same period.
“Our results indicate that brain disease and psychiatric disorders are more common after COVID-19 than after the flu or other respiratory infections,” said Max Taquet, a psychiatrist at Oxford University in the United Kingdom who led the study.
The study, published in the journal Lancet Psychiatry, failed to determine how the virus is linked to psychiatric disorders, Taquet said – adding that urgent research is needed to identify the mechanisms involved.
The researchers also suggested that the pandemic could bring a wave of mental and neurological problems.
“Although the individual risks for most disorders are small, the effect on the entire population can be substantial,” said Paul Harrison, an Oxford psychiatry professor who led the study.
With Post threads