About one out of each eight sufferers admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 had severe neurologic signs, in line with a brand new examine from Boston University School of Medicine.
The researchers discovered that almost 13% of COVID hospitalized sufferers through the first yr of the pandemic developed severe neurologic signs. These neurologic signs are steadily reported even in sufferers with gentle sickness and for some, these signs might persist as a part of lengthy COVID.
The researchers from Boston University School of Medicine studied 16,225 sufferers from 179 hospitals in 24 nations as a part of the Society for Critical Care Medicine’s Viral Infection and Respiratory Illness University Study.
They discovered that 1,656 sufferers (10.2%) at admission had encephalopathy — illness of the mind that alters mind operate or construction. The researchers additionally discovered that 331 sufferers (2%) had a stroke, 243 sufferers (1.5%) had a seizure, and 73 (0.5%) had meningitis or encephalitis at admission or throughout hospitalization.
They found that severe neurologic signs have been tied to poorer outcomes — elevated illness severity, higher want for ICU interventions, longer size of keep, ventilator use nd greater mortality.
“Our findings show that encephalopathy at hospital admission is present in at least one in 10 patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection, while stroke, seizures and meningitis/encephalitis were much less common at admission or during hospitalization,” mentioned writer Anna Cervantes-Arslanian, affiliate professor of neurology, neurosurgery and medication at Boston University School of Medicine.
Patients with neurologic manifestations have been extra prone to have medical comorbidities. Most notably, a historical past of stroke or neurologic dysfunction elevated the percentages of creating a neurologic manifestation.
The researchers additionally discovered that neurologic manifestations differed by race. Black sufferers had an elevated frequency of stroke, seizure and encephalopathy compared with white sufferers.
“Given the association of neurologic manifestations with poorer outcomes, further study is desperately needed to understand why these differences occur and what can be done to intervene,” mentioned Cervantes-Arslanian, who can be a neurologist at Boston Medical Center.
This new examine seems on-line within the journal “Critical Care Explorations.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”