Prevalence and trajectories of neuropsychological post-COVID-19 symptoms in initially hospitalized patients.
Simona Klinkhammer, Annelien A Duits, Janneke Horn and 5 others
PMID 38470168WHAT IT FOUND
Most hospitalized COVID-19 survivors had persistent cognitive complaints or severe fatigue at 9 and 15 months.
About one in three developed new symptoms later. These symptoms did not significantly change in prevalence over time, though depression scores rose slightly while remaining below clinical thresholds.
Key findings
01Severe fatigue and cognitive complaints were the most common issues, affecting over half the patients at both 9 and 15 months, with no significant change in prevalence over time.
02While group-level prevalence was stable, 31.5% of patients developed at least one new symptom (delayed onset) between the two assessments.
03Continuous depression scores increased significantly from 9 to 15 months, but the median scores remained below the clinical cut-off for diagnosis.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study focused only on hospitalized patients, so findings may not apply to those with milder non-hospitalized courses. There was no non-COVID-19 control group, making it difficult to isolate the specific effects of the illness from other factors. Pre-COVID-19 baseline levels for symptoms were not available due to the rapid onset of the pandemic. The study relied on self-reported questionnaires, which measure symptom prevalence rather than objective functional impact or test-based cognitive dysfunction. Attrition occurred, with 21 patients dropping out, though characteristics were similar between completers and dropouts.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The work was supported by a grant from The Brain Foundation Netherlands.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that stable group-level prevalence means individual patients are stable. A significant portion of patients developed new symptoms later in recovery, and self-reported cognitive complaints do not necessarily equate to objective cognitive dysfunction on testing.