A type of cognitive dysfunction commonly called brain fog may trouble COVID-19 patients for as many as 8 months after recovery, according to a year-long investigation.
Researchers examined health data from more than 700 adults who visited the emergency room or were hospitalized for COVID-19 in a New York City hospital between April 2020 and May 2021. Participants’ mean age was 38 to 59 years old.
Using validated assessments to determine cognitive functioning, they found a relatively high frequency of cognitive impairment that lasted for months. Among the hospitalized patients, who presumably had more severe disease, many had problems with executive functioning. Problems in this area can include trouble with organization, listening and attention, as well as processing speed, category fluency, memory encoding, and recall.
Problems with executive functioning are associated with what some describe as a “foggy” feeling when performing normal daily tasks that require these skills.
The study results are consistent with earlier reports of loss of executive function after COVID-19. Similar cognitive problems also have been tied to other viral illnesses such as influenza, reported researcher Juan P. Wisnivesky, M.D., Ph.D., of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York.
It is well-known that older adults and other patient groups can be particularly susceptible to cognitive impairment after critical illness, he and his colleagues noted. But in this study, the adult participants were relatively young.
This link between COVID-19 and executive functioning has “considerable implications for occupational, psychological, and functional outcomes,” he and his colleagues wrote. And it raises the question of what treatments will be needed for these patients in the long term, they concluded.
Full findings were published in JAMA Network Open.
