Covid Patients Face Greater Risk of Neurological Issues, Study Finds
- Pandemic may add to cases of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease
- Study counts 7 extra neurologic diagnoses per 100 Covid cases
Brain and nerve conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and stroke are significantly more common among Covid-19 survivors than those who’ve never had the disease, according to a study of millions of patient records that raises alarms about the pandemic’s devastating aftereffects.
Former Covid patients had a 42% increased risk of neurologic problems a year after testing positive, the study published Thursday in the journal Nature Medicine showed. That translates to an extra seven cases of impaired cognition, memory disorders, Parkinson’s-like disease and dozens of other brain-related conditions for every 100 people who caught the coronavirus, according to scientists led by Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System.