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(CNN) -
Cognitive decline, described as "brain fog," can persist for months in COVID-19 patients, even some who were not hospitalized, according to a new study.
The research, published this Friday in the
JAMA Network Open
magazine
, found that nearly a quarter of covid-19 patients in a Mount Sinai Health System registry experienced some memory problems, and although hospitalized patients were more prone suffering from so-called "brain fog" after a coronavirus infection, some outpatients also suffered cognitive decline.
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"In this study, we found a relatively high frequency of cognitive decline several months after patients fell ill with COVID-19. Deficiencies in executive functioning, processing speed, category fluency, memory encoding and recall was predominant among hospitalized patients, "Jacqueline Becker and her colleagues at the Icahn Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York wrote in the study.
"This pattern is consistent with early reports describing a post-covid-19 dysexecutive syndrome and has considerable implications for occupational, psychological and functional outcomes," the researchers wrote.
Other research, published in April in the
Lancet Psychiatry
, found that up to 1 in 3 people with COVID-19 had longer-term neurological or mental health symptoms.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) includes difficulty thinking or concentrating, sometimes referred to as "brain fog," on their list of post-covid-19 conditions.
"Although most people with covid-19 improve within a few weeks of illness, some people experience post-covid conditions," the CDC notes on its website.
"Post-covid conditions are a wide range of new, recurring, or ongoing health problems that people can experience four or more weeks after being first infected with the virus that causes covid-19."
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The new study included data from April 2020 to May 2021 on 740 Covid-19 patients with no history of dementia.
The mean age of the patients was 49 years.
The cognitive functioning of each patient was evaluated and the researchers analyzed the frequency of cognitive decline among them.
The researchers found that 15% of the patients showed deficits in phonemic fluency when speaking;
16% in a set of mental abilities called executive functioning;
18% showed deficits in cognitive processing speed;
20% in the capacity to process categories or lists;
23% in memory recall and 24% in memory encoding, among other deficiencies.
The researchers found that hospitalized patients were more likely to have deficits in attention, executive functioning, category fluency, and memory.
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For example, when it came to memory, the researchers found that 39% of hospitalized patients had impairment in that area, compared with 12% of patients who were not hospitalized.
When it came to memory encoding, the data showed that 37% of hospitalized patients had deficiencies, compared with 16% of outpatients.
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The authors pointed to the possibility of sample bias, as patients came to Mount Sinai Health System because they were experiencing symptoms.
"The association of COVID-19 with executive functioning raises key questions regarding the long-term management of patients," the researchers wrote.
"More studies are needed to identify risk factors and mechanisms underlying cognitive dysfunction, as well as rehabilitation options."
Covid-19
