COVID-19 may increase the risk of mental health and neurological conditions

COVID-19 may be linked to subsequent mental health and neurological conditions, a new study by The Lancet Psychiatry journal proposal. Over the past few months, increasing concern about this issue has been discussed, but no large-scale data was available to confirm or dispute the claims. The most recent study included medical records of 236,379 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and is considered the largest study conducted to date on COVID-related neurological and psychiatric conditions. Using so much data – mainly obtained from the US-based TriNetx electronic health records – researchers were interested in accurately calculating the risk of COVID-19 patients’ neurological and psychiatric disorders in the six months after being diagnosed with the virus. a study estimates the incidence of 14 neurological and psychiatric disorders associated with a COVID-19 diagnosis, including: intracranial haemorrhage; ischemic stroke; parkinsonism; Guillain-Barré syndrome; nerve, nerve and plexus disorders; myoneural junction and muscle disease; encephalitis; dementia; psychotic, state of mind and anxiety disorders (grouped and separate); drug use disorder; and insomnia. The study found that people diagnosed with COVID-19 were more likely to be diagnosed with a neurological or mental health disorder within six months of contracting the virus. The results further show that anxiety and mood disorders are the most common, 17% and 14% of the patients respectively. Next on the list were drug use disorders, which were recorded among 7% of the participants and problems with insomnia, which occur at 5%.

More severe conditions such as stroke (2.1%), cerebral haemorrhage (0.6%) or dementia (0.7%) were less common, but more likely for patients who became seriously ill during their COVID-19 infection and in the intensive care was taken. As a control group, the patients diagnosed with influenza or other respiratory infections during the same period were used, indicating that COVID-19 patients were more likely to be diagnosed with one of the 14 neurological and psychiatric disorders studied in the study. “Our results indicate that brain diseases and psychiatric disorders are more common after COVID-19 than after flu or other respiratory infections … We now need to see what happens for more than six months,” said Dr. Max Taquet, a co-author of the Oxford University study, told Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry at psych.ox.ac.uk. Prof. Paul Harrison, lead author of the study, highlights the implications of the study as he considers the extent of such disorders worldwide, and the preparations that medical teams will have to make to properly address the problem when it begins to present itself. ‘Although the individual risks for most disorders are small, the effect in the whole population can be significant for health and social care systems due to the scale. of the pandemic and that many of these conditions are chronic. As a result, health care systems must be provided to meet the expected need, both in primary and secondary care services, “Prof Harrison told EurekAlert !, a service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Findings also highlight the need for more comprehensive neurological follow-ups for COVID-19 patients as a whole and especially for those admitted to the ITU.The study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Health Biomedical Research Center.