Prevalence and co-occurrence of cognitive impairment in children and young people up to 12-months post-Omicron, 2024, Foret-Bruno, Chalder+

Prevalence and co-occurrence of cognitive impairment in children and young people up to 12-months post infection with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant
Foret-Bruno; Shafran; Stephenson; Nugawela; Chan; Ladhani; McOwat; Mensah; Simmons; Fox Smith; D'oelsnitz; Xu; Dalrymple; Heyman; Ford; Segal; Chalder; Rojas; Pinto Pereira

BACKGROUND
Cognitive impairment is often reported after SARS-CoV-2 infection, yet evidence gaps remain. We aimed to (i) report the prevalence and characteristics of children and young people (CYP) reporting “brain fog” (i.e., cognitive impairment) 12-months post PCR-proven SARSCoV-2 infection and determine whether differences by infection status exist and (ii) explore the prevalence of CYP experiencing cognitive impairment over a 12-month period post-infection and investigate the relationship between cognitive impairment and poor mental health and wellbeing, mental fatigue and sleep problems.

METHODS
The Omicron CLoCk sub-study, set up in January 2022, collected data on first-time PCRtest-positive and PCR-proven reinfected CYP at time of testing and at 3-, 6- and 12-months posttesting. We describe the prevalence of cognitive impairment at 12-months, indicating when it was first reported. We characterise CYP experiencing cognitive impairment and use chi-squared tests to determine whether cognitive impairment prevalence varied by infection status. We explore the relationship between cognitive impairment and poor mental health and well-being, mental fatigue and trouble sleeping using validated scales. We examine associations at 3-, 6- and 12-months post-testing by infection status using Mann-Whitney U and chi-square tests.

RESULTS
At 12-months post-testing, 7.0% (24/345) of first-positives and 7.5% (27/360) of reinfected CYP experienced cognitive impairment with no difference between infection-status groups (p=0.78). The majority of these CYP experienced cognitive impairment for the first time at either time of testing or 3-months post-test (no difference between the infection-status groups; p=0.60). 70.8% of first-positives experiencing cognitive impairment at 12-months, were 15-to-17years-old as were 33.3% of reinfected CYP experiencing cognitive impairment (p<0.01). Consistently at all time points post-testing, CYP experiencing cognitive impairment were more likely to score higher on all Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire subscales, higher on the Chalder Fatigue sub-scale for mental fatigue, lower on the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale and report more trouble sleeping.

CONCLUSIONS
CYP have a fluctuating experience of cognitive impairment by 12-months post SARSCoV-2-infection. Cognitive impairment is consistently correlated with poorer sleep, behavioural and emotional functioning over a 12-month period. Clinicians should be aware of cognitive impairment post-infection and its co-occurring nature with poorer sleep, behavioural and mental health symptoms.


HIGHLIGHTS
• 12 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, around 7% of children and young people report ‘brain fog’ i.e., cognitive impairment.

• 2.4% of children and young people experienced persistent cognitive impairment at 3-, 6- and 12-months after SARS-CoV-2 infection.

• 12 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, more females, white ethnicities, and older at the time of first infection, children and young people reported cognitive impairment.

• Cognitive impairment co-occurs with poorer mental health, fatigue and sleep problems.

Link | PDF (Brain, Behavior, and Immunity)

 

Could be worse, but there is the usual "multidisciplinary teams because mental health and behavioral", but they frame sleep issues as behavioral, which is absurd, and the poor mental health is clearly a result of the illness, so that without addressing the illness, addressing the mental health is useless. So it's really just the same old, but this time they can't reasonably be dismissive and apply their "viruses don't do that" dogma. At least not fully, deniers and minimizers will keep milking the few months of restrictions for years.

Data show a commonly-found lull where impairments are lower at 6 months, but increase back to close to what they were at 3 months by the 12 month mark. Relapses are pretty common, we are usually talking about remissions rather than recoveries in many cases, all lost without long-term follow-up.

In isolation this would be unremarkable, but happening after decades of making stuff up about alternative explanations for this it just comes off as absurd. This is from a team whose first paper basically concluded: "Long Covid? I don't know, doesn't seem like there's anything here". Ladhani has been especially vocally dismissive that LC even exists.

But, hey, it was an easy paper and when you get funding, you gotta spend it. That's how you get more funding to waste in the future.

 

Given the myriad of physical research anomalies ( albeit mostly in adults) they would risk becoming irrelevant if they didn't acknowledge it..