A review of the research, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, describes the potential long-term effects of the coronavirus on the entire body, highlighting the challenges long-term guards face in their recovery.
The review provides a complete breakdown of each organ affected by long-term Covid-19, including the lungs, heart, kidneys, and skin, as well as the gastrointestinal, neurological, and endocrine systems.
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The publication comes at a time when dozens of Covid clinics have been established across the country, providing for Covid-19 patients whose symptoms persist for months on end.
“With the recognition of more multi-organ effects of this virus, the need for multidisciplinary care becomes clearer,” says Dr Kartik Sehgal, one of the authors of the article.
Sehgal, a medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, turned his attention away from cancer when the pandemic began last spring. “We have all come together as a whole field of doctors to meet the needs of hospitals to care for Covid-19 patients,” he said.
Although most long-term caregivers were never sick enough to be admitted to the hospital, the survey found that as many as one-third of the patients hospitalized with Covid-19 had long-term symptoms.
“It is clear that the care of patients with Covid-19 was not completed at the time of hospital discharge,” the study authors wrote.
The most common symptoms of long-term Covid-19 include fatigue, shortness of breath, fog in the brain, loss of sense of smell or taste, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
There is no specific treatment for Covid-19 long guards. Many clinics focus on physical therapy to treat symptoms.
The review suggests that nutrition should also be a target for treatment.
“We have definitely seen people who are very malnourished,” said Dr. Greg Vanichkachorn, an occupational medicine specialist who treats long-term sufferers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said.
Vanichkachorn, who was not involved in the report, said the fatigue that many long-term residents have may be the reason why they do not feel like cooking or eating. It can also be, he said, because many report a constant loss of taste and smell.
Although a third of confirmed Covid-19 patients reported long-term symptoms, Sehgal pointed out that many people infected with the coronavirus may not know it. It is therefore possible that many long-term caregivers suffer without understanding the cause of their persistent symptoms with brain fog or fatigue.
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Symptoms can be subtle, Sehgal said: “So if someone has symptoms that cannot be explained otherwise, it may be important to consider Covid-19.
Dr. Elaine Wan, senior author of the review, as well as a professor of medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, said the report would change her practice.
“No matter what the patient comes in for, I now ask if they have ever had Covid-19. It changes the possible range of diagnoses,” she said in a statement.
Vanichkachorn said future research will need to focus on what is happening inside the body – at the cellular level – leading to long-term Covid-19 symptoms.
Last month, the National Institutes of Health announced a billion-dollar research initiative on Covid-19 long-term feeders.
“Once we do more research on this,” Vanichkachorn said, “I think we will have more opportunities for treatment and medication.”
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