Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Descriptive Clinical Study, 2022, Gutierrez-Martinez et al

Abstract

Objective:
The investigators aimed to describe the clinical experience of a single center reporting on neuropsychiatric findings among patients experiencing persistent symptoms as part of post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC) infection.


Methods:
Data were collected retrospectively (between February 2020 and May 2021) from a cohort (N=100) within a COVID-19 survivors study of patients with persistent symptoms enrolled after a short inpatient stay or who had been outpatients never hospitalized. Patients without confirmatory positive PCR or antibody diagnostic test results were grouped separately as presumptive cases (N=13).


Results:
Of the 87 patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2, 63 (72.4%) were female, and 65 (74.7%) were White. The mean age was 49.2 years (SD=14.9). The most prevalent symptoms after COVID-19 infection were fatigue, “brain fog,” headache, anxiety, and sleep issues. Attention and executive function were frequently impaired. The mean Montreal Cognitive Assessment score was 26.0 (SD=2.8). Concentration and attention as well as memory issues were both significantly correlated with the complaint of brain fog.


Conclusions:
These preliminary findings suggest that post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 vary in frequency and duration with relation to premorbid history and that these conditions affect functional domains and patients’ ability to return to work. Longitudinal research with larger cohorts is needed to characterize PASC and to optimize care, especially for vulnerable populations.


Paywall: https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.neuropsych.21070193

 

There is a short article about the study.

A key feature of the study is that most (75%) of the cohort were white educated women. "Even though we know Black Americans and Latinx individuals got very sick with COVID-19, we did not see them in the long haulers clinic," notes Chemali who emphasizes this finding likely follows from disparity in healthcare with inability to find time and access to the care needed.

The post-COVID-19 long haulers clinic quickly became the launching base to advance the NIH-funded RECOVER study with principal investigator Ingrid Bassett, MD, investigator in the hospital's Division of Infectious Diseases. The study is aims to understand how and why COVID-19 affects people differently.

(...)

"Everyone is still grappling with understanding long COVID," concludes Chemali, noting that similar symptoms are found in patients with other post-viral diseases, post-traumatic brain injury, concussive syndrome or the vaguely understood chronic fatigue syndrome. "From a neurocircuitry point of view, we see that frontal networks are the most vulnerable in the post-COVID-19 phase."

Chemali suggests that addressing ways to restore frontal neurocircuitry -; such as good quality sleep, alleviating pain and headaches, treating anxiety and depression, and targeting attention and executive functions -; as well as offering support and promoting self-care are the pillars of a good and sustainable recovery.​

 

Not even that. Not even vaguely, not even a little. The invention of CFS was explicitly to remove all connections to infectious diseases. It was dogmatic Truthiness that they are not related. Still mostly is.

And this obsession again. It obviously cannot be related to "brain circuitry" or "neuroplasticity" if it can fluctuate that much in time, or if it can be improved or worsened by things like vaccines or subsequent infections.

Brain connections do not change on the order of minutes, this is so obviously nonsense but because of decades of nonsense being standard everything is just stuck in place, looking for the same thing over and over again. The brain has become the ghost in the machine, responsible for everything but explaining nothing because ghosts don't owe anyone an explanation, they are vague and exist to be vague.

And "treating this and that". I'm sorry but those are goals, there is nothing effective to treat those. What is even the point of putting aspirational things that don't exist as if they are a thing? They even speak of "treating" anxiety and depression as if they're separate things that can be isolated from the rest, rather than direct consequences of, mixed with bad assessment. This mindless obsession with treating symptoms in isolation is basically causing medicine to regress into nonsense.