It is suggested that neuropsychiatric symptoms, such as anosmia (loss of the sense of smell) and depression, are common among people with Covid-19 and may be equally likely to develop mild cases. new search recently released.
Evidence from 215 studies of people with the disease points to a wide range of ways the condition can affect mental health and the brain.
The studies, from 30 countries, included a total of 105,638 people with severe symptoms of the novel coronavirus, including data up to July 2020.
“We expected that neuropsychiatric symptoms would be more common in severe cases, but instead we found that some symptoms appeared to be more common in mild cases,” said Jonathan Rogers of University College London, lead author of the study.
“Covid-19, which affects mental health and the brain, appears to be the rule rather than the exception,” he added.
The most common neuropsychiatric symptoms were anosmia (anosmia), reported by 43% of those with the disease, weakness (40%), fatigue (38%), loss of taste (37%), and muscle aches (25%). ), depression (23%), headache (21%), and anxiety (16%).
Major neurological conditions occurred infrequently, such as stroke seen in 1.9% of cases in the data set, hemorrhagic stroke (0.4%), and seizure (0.06%).
People with severe disease were highly represented in the data set, with most studies focused on people admitted to hospitals, and even studies of people outside of hospitals included few or no symptoms at all.
However, the study found that among people with severe Covid-19 symptoms who were not hospitalized, neurological symptoms were still common.
In this group, 55% reported fatigue, 52% loss of smell, 47% myalgia, 45% loss of taste, and 44% headache.
It’s possible, the researchers said, that such symptoms are common in severe cases, where mild symptoms may not be reported by a patient in critical care.
Although the research did not investigate causal mechanisms, researchers have suggested some possible explanations, including inflammation or poor oxygen supply to the brain.
The researchers said that psychological and social factors related to the context of the epidemic may also play a role. This may be because severely ill people can feel isolated when they can’t see their family or friends, which may explain why depression and anxiety have been found in some studies of people with coronavirus to be more common than other illnesses. .
“With millions of people affected globally, rare symptoms can significantly affect more people than in normal times,” said Alasdair Rooney of the University of Edinburgh, UK, who co-authored the study. “Mental health and neurorehabilitation services must be able to withstand the increase in referrals,” he added.
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