When Covid-19 hits the brain, it can cause strokes, psychosis and a dementia-like syndrome, new survey shows

Anew survey reveals a wide range of serious psychiatric and neurological complications tied to Covid-19 — including stroke, psychosis, and a dementia-like syndrome. The study underscores how aggressively the coronavirus can attack beyond the lungs, and the risk the disease can pose to younger adults.

The study looked at 125 hospitalized patients with Covid-19 who also had some sort of neuropsychiatric complication. Fifty-seven had had an ischemic stroke, caused by a blood clot in the brain. The second most common issue, affecting 39 patients, was an altered mental state, researchers reported. That included encephalitis (an inflammation of the brain that can cause a number of symptoms, from confusion to mobility problems) and encephalopathy (a general term for a disease that alters brain function). Ten patients were newly diagnosed with psychosis, and six had cognitive issues akin to dementia, according to the study, published in the Lancet Psychiatry.

“What was particularly interesting was that this spanned the neurological spectrum,” said senior author Benedict Michael of the University of Liverpool, a neurologist specializing in infectious diseases.

The people in the study ranged from their 20s to their 90s, and the researchers noted that, because they focused on hospitalized patients, the complications detailed likely represent the most serious ones.

Whereas the strokes were more common among older patients, the researchers found that about half of those who experienced altered mental status were younger than 60.

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Πηγή: statnews.com