Cognitive Deficits Seen in COVID-19 Patients Regardless of Symptom Duration

THURSDAY, Feb. 29, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Similar small cognitive deficits are seen for individuals who recovered from COVID-19 in whom symptoms had resolved in less than four weeks or at least 12 weeks, according to a study published in the Feb. 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Adam Hampshire, Ph.D., from Imperial College London, and colleagues estimated a global cognitive score across eight tasks in 112,964 participants who completed an online cognitive assessment.

The researchers found that compared with individuals in the no-COVID-19 group who had not been infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) or had unconfirmed infection, participants who recovered from COVID-19 in whom symptoms had resolved in less than four weeks or at least 12 weeks had similar small deficits in global cognition (−0.23 and −0.24 standard deviation [SD], respectively), while larger deficits were seen for those with unresolved persistent symptoms (−0.42 SD). Participants who had SARS-CoV-2 infection during periods in which the original virus or the B.1.1.7 variant was predominant had larger deficits than those infected with later variants; deficits were also larger for those who had versus had not been hospitalized. These results were similar to those of propensity score-matched analyses. Memory, reasoning, and executive function tasks were associated with the largest deficit in comparison of the group with unresolved persistent symptoms versus the no-COVID-19 group.

"We found objectively measurable cognitive deficits that may persist for a year or more after COVID-19," the authors write. "The implications of longer-term persistence of cognitive deficits and their clinical relevance remain unclear and warrant ongoing surveillance."

Abstract/Full Text

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