Diagnosis and Management of Long COVID in Children and Adolescents: An Update after 5 Years of Clinical and Research Experience - Nadendla et al, 2025

[Kalliope]

Kavita D. Nadendla, Christina Kokorelis, Danilo Buonseno, Luise Neundorff, Alba M. Azola, Peter C. Rowe & Laura A. Malone

Abstract​

Purpose of Review​

Five years into the COVID-19 pandemic, long COVID in children and adolescents has emerged as a complex, chronic condition with distinct clinical features and challenges that can affect the quality of life of children and adolescents.

Recent Findings​

Defined by the inclusive 2024 NASEM criteria, long COVID is recognized as a multisystem illness that can arise even after mild or asymptomatic infections, with symptoms that persist, fluctuate, or relapse over time. Pediatric patients commonly experience fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, orthostatic intolerance, and conditions such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), often with overlapping presentations. Current data highlight key risk factors—including female sex, older age, joint hypermobility, and earlier viral variants—while vaccination has been shown to offer some protective benefit.

Summary​

Effective management for pediatric long COVID requires individualized, multidisciplinary care focused on symptom relief and functional improvement. As clinical understanding continues to evolve, there remains an urgent need for standardized diagnostic tools, consistent outcome measures, and coordinated research efforts to guide treatment and improve quality of life for affected children.

Diagnosis and Management of Long COVID in Children and Adolescents: An Update after 5 Years of Clinical and Research Experience - Current Pediatrics Reports

Purpose of Review Five years into the COVID-19 pandemic, long COVID in children and adolescents has emerged as a complex, chronic condition with distinct clinical features and challenges that can affect the quality of life of children and adolescents. Recent Findings Defined by the inclusive...

link.springer.com

(Full article is paywalled)

 

[rvallee]

Effective management for pediatric long COVID requires individualized, multidisciplinary care focused on symptom relief and functional improvement

No one has managed effective management, for any population of any age. So how can they say that? Obviously if they could manage symptom relief and functional improvement, it would be great, and it's a nice goal, but this is not something anyone has achieved, and the lack of achievement has been almost universally handled by this magical all-fantastical "multidisciplinary care". It's basically the equivalent of "build a working nuclear fusion reactor" as the method to build a working nuclear fusion reaction. First: duh, but also, you haven't done shit yet.

If anything, medicine has proven beyond a doubt that this approach yields no useful results whatsoever. Not that the problem is the approach itself, obviously you will not have a single discipline handle all of this, but this basically says nothing, promoting a model that has failed miserably, even shown itself incapable of learning, adapting or, frankly, of doing anything worth a damn. Things are no better today than 5 years ago, or 15, or 25, or 50.

It's like the old maxim: when it's not broken, don't fix it. Except it goes: when it's useless, keep doing exactly what you're doing and don't even think of changing a single thing, no one cares anyway (don't ask the patients, they're so whiny and critical and so on).

 

[CorAnd]

No one has managed effective management, for any population of any age. So how can they say that? Obviously if they could manage symptom relief and functional improvement,

It’s the same story I hear about ME/CFS. If you read any official documents about ME/CFS and Long Covid in Sweden they all say symptom relief is possible. I have yet to find anything that offers any real symptom relief. And I know from the Long Covid community that it’s the same for them.

I wish researchers would stop using this term. It makes it sound like there is help, when there isn’t.