It is a warning for the health professionals. What was once considered only a deadly variant of flu, is also causing brain damage.
According to experts, one in three severe Covid survivors is going through mental complications. Scientists conducted a study of more than 230,000 survivors. The results: most American patients were diagnosed with a brain and psychiatric disorder within six months of recovery. Researchers who conducted the analysis suggest that the pandemic could lead to an age of mental and neurological problems.
“Our results indicate that brain diseases and psychiatric disorders are more common after Covid-19 than after flu or other respiratory infections,” said a psychiatrist at Britain’s Oxford University, Max Taquet, who co-led the research.
Evidence of increased risks of brain and mental health problems among Covid-19 survivors is a growing concern among health professionals. The same researchers discovered last year that 20% of the survivors were diagnosed with a mental illness within three months.
According to the Lancet Psychiatry Journal’s published findings this Tuesday, health experts analyzed health records of 236,379 Covid-19 patients. The study found that 34% had been diagnosed with psychiatric and neurological illnesses.
The research findings were as follows: Anxiety (17%), mood disorders (14%) being the most common mental health problems among patients. Meanwhile, for those who were sent to intensive care with critical conditions, 7% of them had a stroke within six months, and 2% of them were diagnosed with dementia.
These results will play a significant role in researching how patients react to the disease after surviving. The novel virus alarm health authorities’ adverse side effects to assist the survivors in getting out of the post-covid misery.
Experts cautioned the healthcare facilities to get ample resources to deal with the after-effects of the viral infections. They believe that the pandemic can cause this phenomenon to exist for an extended time. The lead author of the study, Prof Paul Harrison from the University of Oxford, said: “These are real-world data from many patients. They confirm the high rates of psychiatric diagnoses after Covid-19 and show that severe disorders affecting the nervous system (such as stroke and dementia) occur. While the latter is much rarer, they are significant, especially in those who had severe Covid-19.
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