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#LongCovidbrainfacts.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.”
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).
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NEW 📣 Nat’l study in #Sweden: 86% of people on sick leave due to #COVID19 in wave 1 of #pandemic still had symptoms 18m later, esp fatigue, cognition, sleep, movement. Risks higher if hospitalized or female. Vax didn’t exist then.
#MedTwitter #LongCovid
The study also found nearly half of respondents also had problems w/ functioning in daily life 18 mos after they were infected w/ #COVID19. That is #LongCovid. This is a stunning number.
Sweden never had a full lockdown or mask mandate in wave 1. /2
#MedTwitter
With this approach, #COVID19 deaths were noticeably higher in #Sweden than in neighboring countries with more precautions. For example, see this graph from ABC based on a Johns Hopkins analysis of the region. The King said: “I think we have failed.” /3 au.news.yahoo.com/leaders-tragic…
NEW Longest prospective study of #LongCovidKids: 1.3K kids who tested pos for #COVID19 were followed up to 3y. Of note, 89% of cases were “mild” & 9% had no symptoms, & 80% had zero doses of vaccine. Mix of variants, but most were Omicron then Delta. /1 thelancet.com/action/showPdf…
Sadly, 23% of kids had #LongCovid at 3 mos. While #s fell over time, 13% at 6 mos, 8% at 1 yr, 6% at 18 mos, & 7% at 2 yrs still had #LongCovid. This is tragic, both because it means that 1 in 12 kids are still suffering a year later, & most of those remain ill longer term. /2
Adolescents/teens were at MUCH greater risk than age <12, as were those infected by earlier variants. Females & those w/ comorbidities were also at slightly increased risk. Infection w/ orig variant resulted in ⬆️ autoimmune disease. Vaccination reduced risk of #LongCovid. /3
#MedTwitter #NurseTwitter I have a small but important rant about medical gaslighting. I booked a pharmacy appt for vaccines for myself & my family. This evening when we all went to get them, the pharmacist said to me: “You only booked an appt for yourself, not the others.” 1/
No, I’m sure I booked all of us. I had actually booked a time & when it didn’t let me add others, I had cancelled & rescheduled for an hr later when they could take us all. I explained that to the pharmacist who could SEE the cancellation & rescheduling just as I said, but… /2
She then said “but you didn’t book anyone else, just you.” I insisted I did & described the lengthy process of having to re-enter all the same info (address, insurance info) over & over for each of us. She acknowledged that’s how their computer system makes you enter it… /3
We have GOT to be able to identify patients w/ #longCovid who instead (or also) have persistent #SARSCoV2 &/or other reactivated virus. If we immunosuppress them (w/o treating 🦠), we can inadvertently harm them AND potentially abandon therapy that could help others w/ LC.
2/
Our ability to get products into the 🧠 will be more important than ever. That might be products that already cross the blood-brain barrier or novel product delivery strategies (devices to ferry a product across the BBB or strategies to open/close BBB like a drawbridge).
/3
Because some are asking me to translate this, the very brief version is that massive inflammation & cell death occurred in heart, lungs, brain, & eyes of cats who drank unpasteurized milk from cows with #H5N1. In all, >50% of cats at that dairy farm died. #MedTwitter #BirdFlu
#H5N1 #birdflu is likewise very dangerous to us. More than 50% of the people who have tested positive for it globally in the last 20y have died. This is why #MedTwitter is watching closely. Finding increasing cases in humans & esp spreading btwn humans would set off alarms. 😷
NEW: Prosp study in 225 pts w/ “mild” #COVID19 & future surgery or other procedures. People w/ viral RNA detection in tissue or🩸5.2 times more likely to dev #longCOVID symptoms (OR 5.2, 95% CI 2.6–10.1, p<0·0001). Higher copy #, higher odds. #MedTwitter thelancet.com/journals/lanin…
Months after a positive #COVID19 test, viral RNA was found in 10 diff types of tissue, incl the liver, kidney, stomach, intestine, brain, blood vessel, lung, breast, skin, & thyroid + blood cells, which could explain the wide range of reported #longCovid symptoms. #MedTwitter /2
Growing evidence IMO that #COVID19 viral persistence contributes to many cases of #longCovid, though it’s prob not acting alone. Still learning how genetics, immune response, & reactivation of other viruses in us intersect, producing LC in some people & not others. #MedTwitter /3