‘Intelligence hit in long Covid’

A SEVERE coronavirus infection involving hospitalisation and ventilator support, has a substantial impact on a recovered patient’s intelligence as part of wider “long Covid” symptoms, a UK study has found.

Scientists tested 81,337 participants between January and December 2020 with a clinically validated weboptimised assessment as part of the Great British Intelligence Test. The questionnaire captured self-reports of suspected and confirmed Covid-19 infection and respiratory symptoms.

“These results accord with reports of long Covid, where ‘brain fog’, trouble concentrating and difficulty finding the correct words are common,” according to the study in The Lancet – Eclinical Medicine journal last week.

“The scale of the observed deficit was not insubstantial… When examining the entire population, the deficits were most pronounced for paradigms that tapped cognitive functions such as reasoning, problem solving, spatial planning and target detection while sparing tests of simpler functions such as workingmemory span as well as emotional processing,” it said.

Patients who recovered from Covid-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited “significant” cognitive deficits versus controls when controlling for age, gender, education level, income, racial-ethnic group, pre-existing medical disorders, tiredness, depression and anxiety.