Early in the pandemic, it was discovered that patients sick enough to be hospitalized and clinically diagnosed with neurological symptoms associated with COVID-19 were six times more likely to die in the hospital than those without neurological complications.
In a paper published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open, researchers with the Global Consortium Study of Neurologic Dysfunction in COVID-19 (GCS-NeuroCOVID) presented early results of an effort to gather information about the incidence, severity, and various outcomes of neurological manifestations of COVID-19.
“Very early on in the pandemic, it became apparent that a good number of people who were sick enough to be hospitalized also develop neurological problems,” said lead author Sherry Chou, M.D., M.Sc., principal investigator of the consortium and an associate professor of critical care medicine, neurology, and neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC, according to Eurekalert.
“A year later, we are still fighting an unknown invisible enemy and, like in any battle, we need intel–we have to learn as much as we can about neurological impacts of COVID-19 in patients who are actively sick and in survivors.”
According to SciTech Daily, the GCS-NeuroCOVID study is the largest one to date and covers 133 adult patient sites on all continents with the exception of Antarctica.
In one group of 3,744 hospitalized adult patients with COVID-19, 82 percent self-reported or clinically exhibited neurological symptoms. Nearly four out of 10 patients reported headaches and three out of 10 patients reported the loss of their sense of smell or taste.
Of those patients exhibiting clinically diagnosed abnormalities, acute encephalopathy was most common, affecting nearly half of the patients, followed by coma (17 percent) and strokes (6 percent). These manifestations were found to increase the risk of in-hospital death, according to the study.
“Acute encephalopathy is by far the most common symptom that we see in the clinic,” said Chou, also associate director of the Pitt Safar Center for Resuscitation Research. “Those patients may be in an altered sensory state or have impaired consciousness, or they don’t feel like themselves and act confused, delirious or agitated.”
Interestingly, the study found that having a pre-existing neurological condition of any kind – from brain, spinal cord, and nerve diseases to chronic migraines, dementia, or Alzheimer’s disease, among others – is the strongest predictor of developing COVID-19-related neurological complications, doubling a patient’s risk.
Additionally, the study found that having any neurological symptoms related to COVID-19 – even something as inocuous as the loss of smell or taste, or a major stroke, is associated with a six-fold higher risk of dying.
Because COVID-19 is still a relatively new disease, it is still somewat uncertain what the long-term health prospects are for patients who manage to recover from COVID-19.
