What is the long-term impact of Covid-19 on patients? To find out, two studies assessed the repercussions of the virus. These two studies confirm a prolonged impact on cognitive abilities affected patients. And the oldest people seem to be the most vulnerable.
These two studies were published respectively in the journals The Lancet and in Nature Medicine, they focused on young people (voluntarily infected with the virus) and patients aged 54 on average affected by Covid-19. Results ? The findings confirm prolonged impairment of cognitive faculties linked to infection. “Covid-19 is not always a one-shot that we get rid of completely: the infection can cause prolonged cognitive after-effects, even mild ones very probably,” underlines Mahmoud Zureik, professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin (Yvelines), interviewed by Le Monde.
According to the findings, patients are mainly affected by a decrease in executive functions. It is the elderly who have the most serious after-effects than the young. Another conclusion of the study, infected people also present gray matter atrophy. “Grey matter is made up of the cell bodies of neurons, their dendrites and other cells. It is responsible for our sensorimotor activity and our cognitive functions such as reading, calculation, attention, memory…” explains the CEA site, from research to industry.
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