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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

#141

Post by gen220 »

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.

The impact of a stroke varies a lot with the kind of stroke, and the proximity of quality treatment.

An awful stroke speedily treated by top doctors has the chance of imparting basically no change to cognitive function. Of the same token, not-the-worst strokes with mediocre care can ruin one's capacity to work.

It's a really complicated medical event, with high variance in outcome. Strokes suck.

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

#142

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#143

Post by tim333 »

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.

>...significant cognitive deficits when controlling for ..., education level,

I'd guess the education level thing would catch that.

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

#144

Post by irq11 »

rfrey wrote: post #134
irq11 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bigger problem on HN these days is the highbrow lowbrow dismissal, wherein people come up with fancy-sounding reasons for rejecting comments, that are actually themselves lazy/incorrect arguments. For example: when the paper itself says that the cognitive declines seen in people who don’t spend time hospitalized are a small fraction of the magnitude of the cognitive declines seen in hospitalized patients (Figures 2…

I was specifically referring to the claim the effects were probably due to sedation, etc. , not the observation that the study was of hospitalized cases.

So? The OP observed that the most severe effects were in a very small population of hospitalized patients. You fixated on a (plausible) hypothesis made that this could be due to sedation, and used it to reject the entire argument, even though the OP’s point is right, and your argument is a lowbrow dismissal that “experts would have thought of it”.

By the way: as far as I can tell, the paper doesn’t discuss this issue anywhere.

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

#145

Post by paradox242 »

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.

As other have already commented, they have already considered your theory in their analysis:

"Consequently, the observation of post-infection deficits in the subgroup who were put on a ventilator was not surprising. Conversely, the deficits in cases who were not put on a ventilator, particularly those who remained at home, was unexpected."

This effect on those hospitalized is not the primary thrust of their paper. Instead it was the observed effects on those who were not hospitalized or had mild to no respiratory symptoms. They raise many possibilities about why this may be the case and only assert that this effect at least proceeds into the recovery phase. I did not read any claims about this being permanent, broadly speaking.

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

#146

Post by Out_of_Characte »

kmm wrote: post #27

13050 people report having had covid, but only 361 had had a positive test? How reliable is it that those without a test actually had covid? What if people with lower cognitive ability are more likely to falsely report having had it. > Only a small proportion (0.76%) of participants reported having residual symptoms, Unless I'm misunderstanding something, it seems wrong to calculate that rate over all participants. S…

"Someone reporting not being ill can by definition not have residual syptoms"

Ofcourse they can. This is trivially proven by the fact that alot of people lose their sense of smell after a covid infection. Even mostly asymptomatic people have reported this.

"It’s not uncommon for upper respiratory infections such as the common cold or flu to affect our senses of smell and taste. In fact, it’s estimated that a temporary loss of smell happens in over 60 percent of colds and sinus infections."

This is why self-reporting is a different ball-game, I (used) to not consider myself 'sick' and symptomatic if I had a minor flu or cold. One can most definitely report 'not being ill' from coronavirus and suffer residual symptoms.

https://www.healthline.com/health/coronavirus-loss-of-taste-...

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

#147

Post by hawthornio »

mattdeboard wrote: post #119
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.

IQ tests are absolute junk as a measurement of general intelligence. IQ is a political tool not a scientific one.

Is there a better method for measuring general intelligence?

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

#148

Post by ineedasername »

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…

Please note that according to this study people who weren't critically ill still had cognitive deficits.

Otherwise: Yes, other illnesses can have similar effects. Now we have another illness that piles more people on top of that. It adds to the number of people who get critically ill. It's not that Covid is worse than some other health problems, it's that Covid's impact is in addition to the ones that existed.

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

#149

Post by bamboozled »

ineedasername wrote: post #148
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…

Please note that according to this study people who weren't critically ill still had cognitive deficits. Otherwise: Yes, other illnesses can have similar effects. Now we have another illness that piles more people on top of that. It adds to the number of people who get critically ill. It's not that Covid is worse than some other health problems, it's that Covid's impact is in addition to the ones that existed.

So COVID-19 is a special “brain wrecking” virus ?

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

#150

Post by cltby »

bitdizzy wrote: post #117
cltby wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certainly not accusing you of this personally, but it's curious how selectively IQ is accepted/denied on this site. It's real enough for the purposes of covid policy, lead abatement, or whatever other fashionable environmental intervention. In just about every other case, flat out denialism.

IQ is somewhat effective as a diagnostic tool for significant impairment and not much else. Your examples of where it is not contentious are exactly cases where you must measure impairments. Do you want to list some example contexts where you witness "flat out denialism"? In any case there is an important point: The variance of measured IQ for the same individual over time is very high. It's hard to extract a signal…

> IQ is somewhat effective as a diagnostic tool for significant impairment and not much else

This places exactly zero constraints on the utility of IQ tests. Instead of asking why group A scores higher than group B, I can simply ask why group B is impaired relative to group A. Apparently that should be enough to convince you of the validity of the comparison.

> The variance of measured IQ for the same individual over time is very high.

The test-retest correlations of IQ batteries are typically in the 0.8-0.9 range. For example, the Wechsler test [1]. This makes IQ probably the single most reliable measure in the social sciences. Perhaps you're referring to the Wilson effect, but that's not at issue here.

[1] https://images.pearsonclinical.com/images/pdf/wisciv/WISCIVT...

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