fbpx

80 Percent Of Patients Hospitalized With Covid Have Neurological Symptoms Such As Confusion

80 Percent Of Patients Hospitalized With Covid Have Neurological Symptoms Such As Confusion

covid neurological
80 Percent Of Patients Hospitalized With Covid Have Neurological Symptoms Such As Confusion. Dr. Ala Stanford administers a covid-19 swab test on Wade Jeffries in the parking lot of Pinn Memorial Baptist Church in Philadelphia, April 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Most hospitalized covid-19 patients have neurological symptoms and may continue to experience them long after they recover from the disease, with the worst condition being altered mental function ranging from mild confusion to coma, according to a new study.

The symptoms range from muscle pain, headaches and dizziness, to loss of smell or taste and encephalopathy — confusion — research shows in the journal Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology.

The study was based on the frequency and severity of neurological symptoms in 509 patients hospitalized for covid-19 at 10 hospitals and clinics in Chicago at the beginning of the pandemic, Bloomberg reported.

More than a quarter of the patients had been put on ventilators and 82 percent developed nervous system-related problems, according to NBC News.

“Even people who have mild respiratory problems that don’t last long are still at risk of long-haul symptoms,” said Igor Koralnik, the chief of neuro-infectious disease at Northwestern Medicine, in a Bloomberg phone interview.

The report was released on the same day President Donald Trump left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after being hospitalized for three days, NBC News reported. His physicians declined to say whether the president has experienced any major neurological symptoms.

“The phenomenon, involving thousands of patients with symptoms lasting months at a time, complicates the Trump administration’s argument that most illness is mild so the U.S. can quickly reopen the economy,” Bloomberg reported.

Official statistics don’t include long-term cases but instead, show that the vast majority of younger adults survive the virus.

Almost a third of patients developed a more serious type of neurological problem: encephalopathy, or altered brain function. The average age for those in the study with encephalopathy was 65 compared with 55 years old for patients who didn’t have it. Muscle pain was reported by nearly 44.8 percent of patients, and 37.7 percent complained of headaches.

Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 73: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin makes the case for why this is a multi-factor rebellion vs. just protests about George Floyd. He discusses the Democratic Party’s sneaky relationship with the police in cities and states under Dem control, and why Joe Biden is a cop and the Steve Jobs of mass incarceration.

Encephalopathy problems ranged from mild symptoms such as difficulty with concentrating, attention, short-term memory and multitasking “to confusion, stupor and coma,” Koralnik said.

Patients with brain ailments were more likely to be male and have a shorter time from disease onset to hospitalization, according to the study. They also tended to have a history of other disorders such as high blood pressure, Bloomberg reported.

Of the 509 patients studied, the most frequent symptoms were encephalopathy, muscle pain and headaches; 42 percent had neurological problems when they first became aware they were infected, 63 percent at the time of hospitalization and 82 percent at any time during the course of the disease.

Read more: I’m A Covid-19 Long-Hauler And An Epidemiologist – Here’s How It Feels When Symptoms Last For Months