COVID-19 Linked To Substantial Impact On Intelligence In Recovered Patients: Study

"These results accord with reports of long-COVID, where "brain fog'', trouble concentrating and difficulty finding the correct words are common," notes the study published in 'The Lancet - EclinicalMedicine' journal last week.

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 web-optimised assessment as part of the Great British Intelligence Test. The questionnaire items captured self-report 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," notes the study published in 'The Lancet - EclinicalMedicine' 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 whilst sparing tests of simpler functions such as working-memory span as well as emotional processing," it said.