Just like if you have a cut in your arm, there can be swelling and redness that arise from the body’s inflammation of that area to make sure that it’s clean. When that happens, the body destroys the virus through inflammation. Like any virus or bug that gets into our body, the way that we get rid of it is that our immune system takes over and fights it. Is this immune system reaction unique to COVID?ĭr. We suspect this could be due to immune system activation, such that the immune system releases these molecules that help to make the immune system function and fight off infections, but as a side effect, these molecules can impact the nervous system. They had a mild illness and they recovered except that they continue to have long-lasting cognitive problems. But some people seem to have this brain fog out of proportion to their illness. In some patients COVID can cause brain injury, such as stroke, and you would have persistent deficits or problems related to that stroke. Elkind: I think there’s probably a few different reasons for it. A lot of these patients have not had any stroke or infection of the brain, no seizures or anything that was neurologically obvious during their COVID infection, but they’re coming away with a disturbance in their cognition.ĭr. Typical fog complaints that people describe are memory loss, trouble finding words, problems with attention, and being overwhelmed by simple tasks. Merkler: After patients recover from typical symptoms of COVID-19, such as fever, cough or shortness of breath, they have this lingering mental fog.

Alexander Merkler, an assistant attending neurologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center - to better understand this emerging health concern and learn what people can do if they think they have COVID brain fog.ĭr. Mitchell Elkind, an attending neurologist on the stroke service at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and Dr. Health Matters spoke with two neurologists - Dr. Even people who had mild symptoms have reported these neurological issues. But it’s not just among patients who were hospitalized. Researchers who published a paper in the Journal of Infection followed 120 COVID-19 patients for three months after discharge, and approximately 30% said memory loss was a persistent issue, as was concentration. In a recent paper in the journal Neurology Clinical Practice, researchers from NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Irving Medical Center described potential neurological symptoms of COVID-19 to include headache, fatigue, and dizziness, and clinicians across the country similarly report patients who complain of these symptoms along with memory loss, confusion, and difficulty focusing. How does a respiratory illness lead to neurological problems such as memory loss and decreased attention span? The question has perplexed the medical community as it continues to study the long-term impact of COVID-19. But some who recover from the infection have reported lingering side effects, including what has become known as COVID brain fog. A year into the pandemic, many people are familiar with the most common symptoms of COVID-19, such as fever, cough, and difficulty breathing.

Severe brain fog