Becoming seriously ill with Covid-19 is associated with a fall in cognitive abilities comparable with suddenly ageing ten years or losing eight IQ points, according to a new study of more than 80,000 people. medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
Scientists at Imperial College and King's College, London, looked at 84,285 people with suspected or confirmed Covid who had done a range of online cognitive tests for BBC2 Horizon's Great British Intelligence Test show.
Coronavirus infection was associated with lower scores on the brain games, even after differences like age and education were accounted for. The worse the illness, the greater the fall in cognitive ability.
The most seriously ill suffered a drop in cognitive function similar to the decline seen in adults after ageing a decade. The difference was greater than the gap in ability associated with suffering a stroke or having a learning difficulty reported by people in the same cohort.
The researchers say the results set out in their pre-print (not yet peer-reviewed) article "align with the view that there are chronic cognitive consequences of having Covid-19".
People "who recovered from suspected or confirmed COVID-19 perform worse on cognitive tests in multiple domains than would be expected given their age and demographic profiles. This deficit scales with symptom severity and is evident amongst those without hospital treatment."
"These results should act as a clarion call for more detailed research investigating the basis of cognitive deficits in people who have survived SARS-Cov-2 infection."
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