Attention and memory deficits linger for months after recovering from mild Covid – The New Indian Express

Through Online office

People who have had Covid but do not complain of long Covid symptoms in everyday life may nevertheless show impaired attention and memory for up to 6 to 9 months, researchers from the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford and from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Nuffield.

Previous studies have shown that after an acute Covid-19 infection, some people may continue to suffer from cognitive symptoms such as difficulty concentrating, colloquially known as brain fog, as well as forgetfulness and fatigue – hallmarks of the syndrome. “long Covid”.

But it was unclear whether cognitive performance could also be affected in people who had mild symptoms and reported no concerns after recovery from acute Covid infection.

In this study, participants were asked to perform a number of exercises to test their memory and cognitive abilities, with an emphasis on cognitive functions essential to everyday life, such as maintaining attention, memory, planning and semantic reasoning.

All participants had previously suffered from Covid-19 but were not significantly different from a control group at the time of testing on factors such as fatigue, forgetfulness, sleep patterns or anxiety.

The researchers found that the participants performed well in most of the abilities tested, including working memory and planning, but showed significantly lower episodic memory (up to 6 months after infection with Covid ) and a greater decrease in the ability to sustain attention over time (for up to 9 months) than uninfected individuals.

Dr Sijia Zhao from the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, said: “What is surprising is that although our Covid-19 survivors no longer felt symptomatic at the time of testing, they showed impaired attention and memory. Our results reveal that people can experience chronic cognitive consequences for months. »

Professor Masud Husain said: ‘We still do not understand the mechanisms that cause these cognitive deficits, but it is very encouraging to see that this attention and memory largely return to normal in most of the people we tested. 6 to 9 months after infection, which demonstrated good recovery over time.