Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from Covid-19 • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by labseven » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 1:41 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #61

vekker wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I regularly monitor my O2 saturation (via an OTC pulse-ox) when flying unpressurized airplanes. It’s extremely easy to raise my O2 sats at altitude by conscious deep-breathing, but IME, it’s incredibly difficult to lower them near sea-level by any amount of conscious breathing changes. I’m curious to try the Wim-Hof methods on my pulse ox and I’ll do that, but I fully expect to see consistent 98-99% O2 sats here at 1…

From my understanding, the deep breathing doesn't particularly raise O2 (which is already 97-99%) but purges CO2, which then lets you hold your breath (empty lungs) for 2-3 minutes. In this period, my O2 (on my finger) drops to 85% before I feel a need to breathe in. It is important to 'replenish' the CO2 between deep breathing, otherwise I get very loopy.

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

#102

Post by krona » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 1:45 PM UTC

yasp wrote: post #98

Nassim Taleb has assured me that IQ is a "pseudoscientific swindle". Imagine my shock, therefore, to see this paper relying on it.

Taleb doesn't dispute that IQ measures something useful with regards to cognitive ability.

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

#103

Post by diu7sieQuee9jai » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #66

aronpye wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here here

* Hear hear I had to look that one up. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/here-here-vs-hear-hear/

They probably meant "here here I'm a peer, I'll review for food." ;)

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

#104

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

Wintamute wrote: post #97

Causation !== correlation. An alternative explanation is those more likely to catch COVID-19 are more likely to be a cohort with lower IQ to begin with (e.g. have lower skilled jobs that put them in harms way etc.). Without a before and after IQ test of biologically confirmed COVID-19 patients this is junk.

[deleted]

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

#105

Post by fasteo » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #99

fasteo wrote: post #94

A quick Google search reveals that cognitive deficit seems to be a common consequence in any critically ill patient, not just Covid-19 This study[1] of just one example: Cognitive dysfunction is an important long-term complication of critical illness associated with reduced quality of life, increase in healthcare costs, and institutionalization And the numbers are certainly high: Cognitive impairment was identified i…

Sure as you say critical illness with long term medical effects is known to have this impact. The difference is that, as the abstract points out, substantial cognitive impairment in Covid patients was found even in people who displayed mild symptoms and were never critically ill.

Fair point. I missed that part. Thanks.

Now we should also research if viral infections in general have an association to cognitive deficit. I guess this will be the case.

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

#106

Post by simonh » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 1:52 PM UTC

redis_mlc wrote: post #4

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…

> the hospitalised with ventilator sub-group So this affects almost nobody then, and is probably caused by the sedatives, immobilization and ventilator organ damage, aside from corona.

Most of the impact seems to occur even without serious symptoms:

>bio-positive cases who reported being ill with no breathing difficulties showed a 0.32SD magnitude cognitive deficit.

My wife's hospital was full to the corridors with 'almost nobody's.

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

#107

Post by ghufran_syed » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 1:54 PM UTC

rfrey wrote: post #84

ghufran_syed wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted - here’s a page about post-intensive care syndrome, on the website of the society for critical care medicine, that’s concordant with what you said: https://www.sccm.org/MyICUCare/THRIVE/Post-intensive-Care-Sy...

Possibly for what HN calls "middlebrow dismissal" - wandering in and dismissing the article with blindingly obvious issues ("probably caused by the sedatives, immobilization" etc) as if professional medical researchers wouldn't have thought of them. They plainly need a clear-eyed HN reader on staff to help them.

Ahh, that's helpful, thanks! I think I unconsciously strip out a lot of that tone when I read, but I can see how it would be unhelpful

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

#108

Post by b112 » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

julianlam wrote: post #93

dempseye wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very English way of expressing oneself.

I also used to find this disturbing, but the way I have explained this to myself is -- Insignificant 75% Of course for each individual situation the numbers vary, and I use them simply to demonstrate that it's a matter of degrees, and not as binary as you may expect a typical "not" to be. It is the only double negative I have come to find useful.

I agree with the 'binary' here, but also add "not bracketed".

For me, I see:

Insignificant ~75%

With:

Not Significant But of course, that's almost certainly a colloquialism.

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

#109

Post by cpncrunch » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC

HoverSausage wrote: post #30

The study says "They (significant cognitive deficits) were of substantial effect size for people who had been hospitalised, but also for mild but biologically confirmed cases who reported no breathing difficulty." So according to that study, it doesn't appear to be from ventilators if the effect is also seen in mild cases. Or am I reading it wrong?

The effect for non-hospitalised was only around 0.1 SD, so quite small.

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

#110

Post by redis_mlc » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

isoprophlex wrote: post #8

redis_mlc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "what's the effect of psychotrauma resulting from illness and hospitalization on cognitive function" Ventilators are extremely physically traumatic - those patients are considered to be the sickest in any hospital.

It must be hell to have a bunch of suited figures tell you "we're putting you to sleep, hope to see you on the other side"... and then wake up intubated.

> and then wake up intubated

This is a misconception about ventilators.

No, they don't wake you up until days/weeks later, until after the tube is removed. The reason is that patients fight the tube, so must be in a coma.