Study: Fatigue, headache most common lasting symptoms months after COVID-19

August 16,2022

AN average of more than four months after having COVID-19, participants most frequently reported expe­riencing fatigue and headaches, according to researchers.

 

The subsequent symptoms in the long list of persistent symp­toms included muscle aches, coughing, changes in taste and smell, fever, chills, and nasal con­gestion.

 

The Medical College of Geor­gia researchers reports their find­ings in the journal ‘Science Direct’. “Our results confirm the emerging evidence that there are chronic neuropsychiatric effects following COVID-19 infections,” they write.

 

“There are many symptoms that we did not know what to make of early in the epidemic,” says Dr Elizabeth Rutkowski, an MCG neurologist and the study’s cor­responding author. “But now it’s evident there is a lengthy COVID condition and that a lot of people are afflicted.”

 

The 200 patients in the first visit of the CONGA, or COVID-19 Neurological and Molecular Pro­spective Cohort Study in Georgia, were recruited on average about 125 days after testing positive for the COVID-19 virus. The published study presents preliminary find­ings from the first visit of these patients.

 

Severity and prognosis of neu­rological issues

 

Aiming to enrol 500 people over a five-year period, CONGA was developed at MCG early in the pandemic in 2020 to investi­gate the severity and prognosis of neurological issues.

 

Eighty per cent of the initial 200 individuals reported neuro­logical symptoms, with fatigue leading the way at 80.5 per cent, followed closely by a headache at 68.5 per cent. A little more than half of the participants (54.5 per cent) and tasters (54 per cent) reported changes, and 47 per cent of them met the standards for mild cogni­tive impairment, with 30 per cent showing poor vocabulary and 32 per cent having impaired working memory.

 

In addition to their experience with COVID-19, 21 per cent of in­dividuals also reported disorien­tation, and hypertension was the most prevalent medical condition.

 

Although no participants re­ported having had a stroke, coor­dination issues, muscle weakness, or an inability to regulate speaking muscles, these were some of the less often reported symptoms.

 

Twenty-five per cent of the participants fit the criteria for de­pression, and those who did were more likely to have diabetes, obe­sity, sleep apnea, and a history of depression. The 18% who fulfilled the objective criteria for anxiety had anaemia and a history of de­pression.

 

Although the results to date are not shocking and are in line with what other researchers are discovering, according to Rut­kowski, it was interesting that par­ticipant symptoms frequently did not match what objective testing revealed. Additionally, it was recip­rocal. The majority of subjects, for instance, claimed changes in taste and smell, but results of empirical tests of these senses did not al­ways support their claims. Accord­ing to objective measurements, a higher percentage of people who did not report the changes actually showed signs of reduced function, the researchers wrote.

SOURCE : ANI