Severe COVID-19 Decreases IQ by 10 Points, Causes Memory Loss, Difficulty in Finding Words

Having severe COVID-19 may impact cognitive impairment equivalent to aging 20 years and decreasing IQ by 10 points, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College of London. The findings supported a growing number of evidence that coronavirus can cause long-term cognitive and mental health issues.

As per the University of Cambridge, the findings, published in the journal eClinicalMedicine, revealed that survivors of severe COVID-19 had cognitive impairments similar to aging between 50 to 70. 

Study findings

The study was conducted on 46 patients aged 28 to 83, who were hospitalized from March 10 to July 31, 2021. Of the 46 patients, 16 were placed on mechanical ventilation during their stay in the hospital. All were put through computerized cognitive tests six months after their acute illness to assess several mental aspects like memory, attention, and reasoning.

Researchers found that those who had severe cases of COVID-19 with symptoms persisting for more than six months improved slowly. The result suggested that patients recovering from severe coronavirus infections may require longer-term care for cognitive deficits.

Senior author David Menon, a professor at the University of Cambridge, said that cognitive impairment is common to many neurological disorders, including dementia and aging. But the cognitive mark of COVID-19 was distinct from all these.

As per Euronews, patients with long COVID symptoms had fatigue, brain fog, problems recalling words, sleep disturbances, anxiety, and more, even months after infection.

Hospitalized patients complained of suffering cognitive symptoms three to six months after acute illness. Cognitive symptoms also occur even in mild cases.

Researchers noted that patients were less accurate and slower at responding than a control group. They reported the effects to be most vital for those on mechanical ventilation.

They estimate that the cognitive loss is similar to that experienced from ages 50 to 70, or the loss of 10 IQ points.

The team also noted that patients scored poorly on verbal reasoning, which supports a commonly-reported issue after COVID, which is difficulty finding words.

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Previous studies on mental health

Previous research revealed that people recovering from severe COVID experienced long-term mental health and cognitive symptoms, including depression, anxiety, brain fog, fatigue, and other mental-related issues.

In October 2021, a research involving 740 people with no history of memory problems found that patients with COVID-19 still had high rates of brain fog more than seven months after the diagnosis.

Another study from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, one of the first comprehensive inquiries into the long-term effects of severe COVID-19, showed that the severity of coronavirus infection also had severe after-effects.

Forbes reported that researchers do not know what causes long-term Covid cognitive effects. They noted that further investigations would focus on "mapping" cognitive deficits to underlying issues in the body and inflammatory biomarkers to figure out the cause.

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