Body
Memory and concentration problems haunt 7 in 10 patients with long COVID, a pair of new studies indicate.
The findings suggest that COVID-19 has a notable impact on brain health, even if the precise underlying mechanisms remain unclear, British researchers said.
"We set out to explore whether some of the long-lasting issues in COVID -- things like inflammation and abnormal blood clotting -- had an impact on people's ability to remember and make decisions," explained senior study author Lucy Cheke.
"This was because we know from previous work that when there's a lot of inflammation in the body, and when blood forms lots of clots, this can often have an impact on the brain," added Cheke, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. "[And] our main finding was that people with ongoing symptoms -- with long COVID -- had measurable reductions in memory ability."