A bout with COVID-19 can cause dementia-like brain changes and related functional decline, especially for seniors and in people who lose their sense of smell, researchers are finding.
Certain physical and mental health problems persist for years in some hospitalized survivors of acute respiratory diseases, suggesting that disability may be permanent for some severely ill COVID-19 patients as well, investigators say.
A analysis based on nearly two million private U.S. healthcare claims has identified the most common post-COVID conditions with a focus on age, gender, mental health conditions and mortality. Even 19% of asymptomatic patients were found to develop lingering problems.
Many cases can be managed by primary care providers, federal health officials say. A lack of lab or imaging abnormalities does not invalidate the existence or severity of a patient’s symptoms or conditions, they emphasize.
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Physical dysfunction problems often are overlooked in the care of older, frail patients with acute heart failure. But these patients find greater functional and quality of life benefits from early, transitional, and progressive rehab when compared with usual care, a new trial has found.
In one group of hospitalized COVID patients, 82% had self-reported or clinically diagnosed neurological symptoms. “Even if the pandemic is completely eradicated, we are still talking about millions of survivors who need our help,” one investigator says.
Despite an aging population and safer surgical procedures, the frequency of abdominal surgery is decreasing among older adults — particularly in those age 85 and older, according to researchers from the University of Chicago Medicine.
Most patients in post-acute care settings reap functional benefits and see reduced rehospitalization from physical therapy and occupational therapy, finds a new study across 1.4 million Medicare beneficiaries.
Rural Medicare beneficiaries are less likely than their urban peers to receive care from either a nursing home or home health agency following acute hospitalization, conclude investigators with the University of Washington’s Rural Health Research Center.
