Published on 06/02/2022 at 1:40 p.m.,
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The Covid-19 pandemic began at the beginning of 2020, yet the entity “Covid long” is not yet fully known. This long form of the disease concerns 10 to 15% of patients. It would cause a decline in cognitive performance in some cases, warn the Sages.
If it lasts longer than four weeks, the Covid-19 infection will then be called “Covid long”. This condition is characterized by specific symptoms, which the Academy of Medicine lists: “headaches, fatigue, memory problems, difficulty concentrating, insomnia with non-restorative sleep, hypersomnia, mood disorders, diffuse pain…“.
Global consequences
The long Covid is not rare, when we know that it affects 10 to 15% of Covid patients. For the Academy of Medicine, the “possibility of sequelae corresponding to lasting symptoms is now mentioned by several follow-up studies of infected patients..
The symptoms concern the neuro-psychiatric sphere but also other systems of the organism, in particular respiratory, cardiovascular, neurosensory or even endocrine.
Alert on the cognitive consequences
And in 10% of cases, a decline in cognitive performance is noted, one year after infection. Why is there this effect of Covid on the brain? For the Academy of Medicine, “the mechanisms are unknown, but hypotheses are raised and studied (neurovascular, consequence of hypoxia, chronic inflammation, etc.).
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A dedicated working group
This research is going to be carried out by a specific working group, “entitled “Covid and the nervous system”, in order to better understand the acute neurological forms of Covid-19 and the neuropsychiatric symptomatology described in the prolonged forms” announce the Sages in their press release.
Given the number of people affected, the objective is to better understand the effects of the long Covid on cognitive performance, “especially in the elderly, post-Covid-19 cognitive decline must be differentiated from a “natural” decline“.