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Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19

medrxiv.org

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Re: Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19

#51

Post by doktrin »

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #28

I would be nice if the HN link could reflect the wording found in the article's Abstract: "Case studies have revealed neurological problems in severely affected COVID-19 patients." By adding "severely affected" to the context the authors set an important scope of analysis to their study.

That's not their scope of analysis, that's just the introductory sentence. It's meant to reflect on the existing body of knowledge prior to their study. To paraphrase, it's essentially saying "this is what we know already, and here is what we're adding to the body of knowledge with this study"

As always, it's best to read the source material directly but these are relevant excerpts from the abstract :

"Case studies have revealed neurological problems in severely affected COVID-19 patients. However, there is little information regarding the nature and broader prevalence of cognitive problems post-infection or across the full spread of severity...

...People who had recovered, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits when controlling for age, gender, education level, income, racial-ethnic group and pre-existing medical disorders. They were of substantial effect size for people who had been hospitalised, but also for mild but biologically confirmed cases who reported no breathing difficulty."

The last part directly contradicts the idea that this study is limited in scope to severe cases.

Re: Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19

#52

Post by ainiriand »

Smaug123 wrote: post #22
torben-friis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which way are they physically traumatic? (Not doubting you, just curious and completely ignorant on how they're used)

The most intensive form of ventilation is so extremely unpleasant that patients are usually kept sedated for the whole thing. An external pump shoves air into the lungs via a tube through the mouth and down the windpipe; there's a very small window of pressures where you can do this without physically damaging the lung. The tube itself is immensely uncomfortable and I imagine its mere presence would be traumatic enou…

I had one of those in my trachea in 2 different occasions, sedated the whole time like you said. For very few moments I was a bit lucid and I detected the foreign object. But you cannot move, you can barely move your eyes. I fought against it with my tongue and it was problematic so the nurses had to rush to sedate me a bit more, but you know that something is going on; you can hear some beeps and rushed steps around you. For a few short moments your brain is thinking about possibilities. You ask yourself if maybe you are in a comma, or in a vegetative state. And you get really sad. I remember crying while going back into sedation, terrified and in despair. And I was just 14 and 16 years old.

For me, having that ventilator -something that when you read about it, or you talk about it, doesn't seem like much- was a traumatic experience that I will never forget.

Re: Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19

#53

Post by throwaway1092 »

neuronic wrote: post #34
fogihujy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the fact that someone was uable to breathe on their own also suggests that the virus may have caused a lack of oxygen to the brain. In such circumstances brain damage is quite likely, and then the disease would indeed be the cause. Fortunately, the group of people that end up on ventilators is not really that large, and I can imagine minor brain damage would still be preferable to death in many of those cases.…

People are unable to worry about or comprehend the effects that happen right NOW. I am a staunch believer in post-viral syndrome as I experienced it first hand following an Epstein-Barr infection (mono) but aside from a handful of researchers nobody cares at all. For most physicians, it isn't even within the realm of possibilities when you come to them with random maladies. Boom, now you have anxiety because that's w…

> But things like autoimmune issues, persistent 15-year brain fog (I'd rather call it frosted glass layer) which randomly clears once a month to remind me how nice it is to be able to think straight

I've been experiencing something similar for the past 5 years: brain fog (frosted glass is a much better way of putting it.) and some short term memory issues. The doctors put me through a battery of tests to find...that they could find no reason for my ailment. Curious to know what if anything has helped you the most. The 'randomly clearing' brain fog for a day happens to me maybe once every 3 months and it's both a blessing and a curse.

Re: Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19

#54

Post by afiori »

neuronic wrote: post #34
fogihujy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the fact that someone was uable to breathe on their own also suggests that the virus may have caused a lack of oxygen to the brain. In such circumstances brain damage is quite likely, and then the disease would indeed be the cause. Fortunately, the group of people that end up on ventilators is not really that large, and I can imagine minor brain damage would still be preferable to death in many of those cases.…

People are unable to worry about or comprehend the effects that happen right NOW. I am a staunch believer in post-viral syndrome as I experienced it first hand following an Epstein-Barr infection (mono) but aside from a handful of researchers nobody cares at all. For most physicians, it isn't even within the realm of possibilities when you come to them with random maladies. Boom, now you have anxiety because that's w…

This has some parallels to what happened to me as a child, in that case it was clear that some kind of post-viral syndrome was in effect, but I never connected to the brain fog (I would describe my sensation as my brain turning into fog) I got some years later.

Re: Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19

#55

Post by akuchling »

hejja wrote: post #26
pedro-guimaraes wrote: post #7

Much is still to be discovered about the virus, science only knows the effects after less than 1 year. The question is, what could long-term effects of this virus? (let's in 10-20 years)

true, yet the same can be said of: - any new pharmaceutical - diets (keto, carnivore, etc) - 5g etc point being: modifying behavior due to decade time-horizon unknowns is not really pragmatic.

It does mean not being very careless about getting infected, and weighs against the idea of going for herd immunity without a vaccine.

Here's a Twitter thread listing post-infection syndromes from other vital infections: https://mobile.twitter.com/aetiology/status/1318676570467409...

Re: Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19

#56

Post by vekker »

neuronic wrote: post #34
fogihujy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the fact that someone was uable to breathe on their own also suggests that the virus may have caused a lack of oxygen to the brain. In such circumstances brain damage is quite likely, and then the disease would indeed be the cause. Fortunately, the group of people that end up on ventilators is not really that large, and I can imagine minor brain damage would still be preferable to death in many of those cases.…

People are unable to worry about or comprehend the effects that happen right NOW. I am a staunch believer in post-viral syndrome as I experienced it first hand following an Epstein-Barr infection (mono) but aside from a handful of researchers nobody cares at all. For most physicians, it isn't even within the realm of possibilities when you come to them with random maladies. Boom, now you have anxiety because that's w…

This might seem a bit out there / like woo woo to some, but have you tried "breathing exercises" (intermittent hypoxia) and cold exposure to counter those effects you are talking about? Particularly, the Wim Hof Method?

I know it helps for people with autoimmune diseases anecdotally, but there's also some good scientific evidence for it.

Re: Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19

#57

Post by sokoloff »

kasperni wrote: post #2

From the conclusion: "The scale of the observed deficits was not insubstantial; the 0.57 SD global composite score reduction for the hospitalised with ventilator sub-group was equivalent to the average 10-year decline in global performance between the ages of 20 to 70 within this dataset. It was larger than the mean deficit of 512 people who indicated they had previously suffered a stroke (-0.40SDs) and the 1016 who…

It’s equally as surprising to me the suggestion that the average decline in IQ from a stroke would be only 6 points or so.

Re: Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19

#58

Post by srtjstjsj »

sokoloff wrote: post #57
kasperni wrote: post #2

From the conclusion: "The scale of the observed deficits was not insubstantial; the 0.57 SD global composite score reduction for the hospitalised with ventilator sub-group was equivalent to the average 10-year decline in global performance between the ages of 20 to 70 within this dataset. It was larger than the mean deficit of 512 people who indicated they had previously suffered a stroke (-0.40SDs) and the 1016 who…

It’s equally as surprising to me the suggestion that the average decline in IQ from a stroke would be only 6 points or so.

It's an average. Strokes can be very small and localized.

Re: Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19

#59

Post by srtjstjsj »

shultays wrote: post #35
xd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's still an effect of the treatment. If you perform a study on people whom have been ill you're going to get results that show all the symptoms of illness.. the study could have been done with any illness and likely show cognitive decline.

symptoms of illness is the illness itself. Ignoring these symptoms of covid or results of the treatment is saying something like "bullets don't kill people, it ruptures blood vessels and you die due to loss of blood"

You misunderstand the ambiguous wording. If you study only includes people with an illness, the illness itself is a confounder.

The point is that if you have a non-ICU covid case, this research is unlikely to apply.

Re: Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19

#60

Post by ceilingcorner »

This is perhaps impossible to test (which shows the fundamental weakness of social science) but I think it's nonetheless relevant: studies like this don't factor in overall societal attitude.

I can't be the only one that has felt tired, depressed, and just plain bewildered over the past six months. The pessimistic doomsday mentality affects everyone, even if you don't actually get the virus. If I took an IQ test today, I bet I would fare worse than pre-COVID (and I haven't gotten it.)

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