<
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/28/brain-fog-from-long-covid-has-measurable-impact-study-suggests>
"People experiencing long Covid have measurable memory and cognitive deficits
equivalent to a difference of about six IQ points, a study suggests.
The study, which assessed more than 140,000 people in summer 2022, revealed
that Covid-19 may have an impact on cognitive and memory abilities that lasts a
year or more after infection. People with unresolved symptoms that had
persisted for more than 12 weeks had more significant deficits in performance
on tasks involving memory, reasoning and executive function. Scientist said
this showed that “brain fog” had a quantifiable impact.
Prof Adam Hampshire, a cognitive neuroscientist at Imperial College London and
first author of the study, said: “It’s not been at all clear what brain fog
actually is. As a symptom it’s been reported on quite extensively, but what our
study shows is that brain fog can correlate with objectively measurable
deficits. That is quite an important finding.”
Last year the Office for National Statistics estimated about 2 million people
in the UK were experiencing self-reported long Covid. Previous Imperial College
analysis found tens of thousands of people in England may have symptoms that
had lasted a year or more after infection.
The latest study recruited more than 140,000 participants from the original
React cohort, which launched in April 2020 as one of the world’s largest and
most comprehensive Covid surveillance studies. Between August and September
2022, participants were given online cognitive tests designed to test memory,
attention, reasoning and other aspects of brain function.
About 3.5% of the cohort had experienced symptoms that persisted beyond 12
weeks, and of these about two-thirds still had symptoms at the time of the
assessment.
The analysis found small deficits that were still detectable a year or more
after infection, for those who had been infected and no longer had symptoms.
The difference in test scores between those who had been infected and those who
had not was equivalent to about three IQ points, had they been given an IQ
test."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
