Neurologists published details of more than 40 Covid-19 patients in the UK, who suffered complications ranging from brain inflammation, delirium to nerve damage and stroke.
The Guardian reported that scientists are warning that serious and potentially fatal Covid-19 linked brain disorders are emerging in mildly affected as well as recovering patients, their research has revealed that the coronavirus doesn’t just target the lungs.
During the first wave of Covid-19, it was revealed that there was a rise in a life-threatening condition called Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelities (ADEM), of which cases increased from one a month to two or three per week.
One woman, aged 59, died from the complication and a dozen others had inflammation of the Central Nervous System.
10 of them had brain disease with psychosis and/or delirium, whereas another 8 had strokes.
A senior author on the study and a consultant at the Institute and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Michael Zandi said: “What we’ve seen with some of these Adem patients, and in other patients, is you can have severe neurology, you can be quite sick, but actually have trivial lung disease.”
These cases leave some breathless and fatigued long after they are cleared of the virus, while others were plagued with numbness, weakness as well as memory problems.
Patients are reported to be behaving oddly after being discharged from hospitals, with one notably putting on her coat and taking it off again while hallucinating visions of monkeys and lions in her house.
Another woman, 47, was admitted to hospital with numbness and headaches. She later became drowsy and unresponsive, ultimately requiring an emergency operation to remove part of her skull to relieve pressure on her brain, which had swelled up.
However, the full range of brain disordered cause by the coronavirus has yet to be picked up on yet, because a lot of these patients are too sick to examine in brain scanners.
Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist who was not involved in the study, told the media: “My worry is that we have millions of people with Covid-19 now. And if in a year’s time we have 10 million recovered people, and those people have cognitive deficits… then that’s going to affect their ability to work and their ability to go about activities of daily living.”