Thread by @tmprowell

A study from #Brazil finds 1 in 4 adults who had mild #COVID19 demonstrated cognitive deficits. The average age of study participants was 38. See what happened when they were asked to copy a diagram. We are not prepared for this. #MedTwitter #LongCovid brainfacts.org/diseases-and-d…

Many people are replying “I wouldn’t have been able to copy that drawing accurately even before #COVID19.” This is true. On avg, 5-8% of population are unable to reproduce this. What concerned researchers was that in this study of ppl w/ mild COVID, 25% of them could not.

There are less complex drawings that can look for more obvious visuoconstructive deficits. We often ask patients to draw a clock showing a specific time when screening for dementia. Here’s a published example of those drawings (unrelated to COVID). sistershospitallers.org/clock-drawing-…

Multiple people have also commented that I didn’t include the actual study. The link to the article in the first tweet of the 🧵 in fact contains a hyperlink to the study publication, available w/ no paywall, but here it is again: nature.com/articles/s4138…. #LongCovid #MedTwitter

Author notes findings are worrisome because “groups’s mean age was 38 & mostly highly ed profs such as physicians & nurses, as recruitment took place during the initial stage of the #pandemic.”

So #MedTwitter we need to 👀.

And it wasn’t the #COVID19 vax— it didn’t exist yet.

And finally, if you are #MedTwitter or someone else who requires more details than in this 🧵, please go to the article or the orig publication of the study linked earlier. If you need more info on the study that isn’t in there, contact the study authors (I’m not one of them).