Background: We investigated the longevity of COVID-associated brain fog in patients who have survived the COVID-19.
Methods: This was a follow-up study of 2,696 adult patients with COVID-19 from our previous study (doi: 10.1002/jmv.27404). We selected every other patient in our database. The follow-up data were collected during a phone call to the participants in January-February 2022 (11 months after the initial study): concentration difficulty and the patient’s self-declared status in their ability to concentrate.
Results: In total, 1164 people were included; 35 people (3.0%) had concentration difficulty and 65 individuals (5.6%) had a worsened status in their ability to concentrate and think; 26 people (2.2%) responded yes to both questions and were considered as having long-lasting brain fog. People with long-lasting brain fog were more often admitted to ICUs during the initial hospitalization (23.1% vs. 9.3%; p = 0.032) compared with those without long-lasting brain fog.
Conclusion: We may conclude that a minority of the hospitalized patients with COVID-19 may suffer from long-lasting post-COVID brain fog, at least for more than one year after their initial illness. Long-lasting post-COVID brain fog has a significant association with the severity of the initial illness.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.