COVID-19 patients may suffer brain ageing, fall in cognitive abilities: Study

People recovering from COVID-19 may suffer significant cognitive deficits, with the worst cases linked to mental decline equivalent to the brain ageing by 10 years, a study said. Researchers from the Imperial College of London and King’s College London analysed cognitive test data from 84,285 people with suspected and confirmed COVID-19 infection who went through BBC2 Horizon's Great British Intelligence Test.

According to the study, seriously ill COVID-19 patients were associated with a fall in cognitive abilities equivalent to sudden ageing by ten years or losing eight IQ points. The study has not been peer-reviewed yet and the results in the pre-print article "align with the view that there are chronic cognitive consequences of having COVID-19”.

“Individuals who recovered from suspected or confirmed COVID-19 perform worse on cognitive tests in multiple domains than would be expected given their detailed age and demographic profiles,” the study said.

"These results should act as a clarion call for more detailed research investigating the basis of cognitive deficits in people who have survived SARS-Cov-2 infection," it added.

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Medium-term impact

Earlier this month, another study on the medium-term impact of COVID-19 found that a significant proportion of patients discharged from hospital continue to experience breathlessness, fatigue, anxiety, and depression for 2-3 months after the infection. The University of Oxford led the research and observed the medium-term impact of COVID-19 on 58 patients hospitalised due to the highly-infectious disease.

“The medium-term effects of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on multiple organ health, exercise capacity, cognition, quality of life and mental health are poorly understood,” the study said.

The findings of the study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed but published on the MedRxiv website before the review, suggest that 64% of patients experienced persistent breathlessness and 55% complained of significant fatigue. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the patients indicated tissue signal abnormalities in the lungs (60%), heart (26%), liver (10%) and kidneys (29%) of patients.

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