Covid ‘hits thinking skills’
Memory and reasoning are worse a year after infection
COVID may permanently affect thinking skills and harm our ability to form new memories.
A landmark study of 140,000 people shows those who have had the virus are slightly worse at memory, reasoning and attention tests.
However the Imperial College London study suggests people can start to recover from Long Covid.
Looking at participants of similar age and health, researchers found those who contracted the virus were left with worse executive function and impulsivity.
Memory was the most affected, such as the ability to remember pictures of objects that were viewed a few minutes earlier.
First author Prof Adam Hampshire, of Imperial, said: “We were able to detect small but measurable deficits in cognitive task performance.”
This was found a year or more after infection, even in people who had a or minor illness. The REACT study, which is one of the biggest and most comprehensive monitoring Covid, also found that those who contracted early variants were more affected.
They were also worse in patients who had been hospitalised with Covid who had gone on to suffer Long Covid – characterised as lasting symptoms for at least 12 weeks.
However when particishort
Coronavirus pants’ Long Covid symptoms subsided, their cognitive deficit improved so that it was similar to those who had a shorter illness.
Prof Paul Elliott, director of the REACT programme, said: It will be important to continue to monitor the long-term clinical and cognitive consequences of the pandemic.”
The findings are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.