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Beware the Mental Health Consequences of Long-Covid
Long-Covid carries a potential host of mental health issues for those with pre-existing disorders as well as new mental health issues.
COVID-19 tried all the locks in our immune system and found what it wanted: entrances. The result gave it access not simply to our major organs but also to our most prized possession, our brains. Once there, it would begin to play out its script of destruction and place bits in place to disrupt our lives in terms of our mental health. Only now are we beginning to put the pieces of this vast puzzle together to see the total picture, and it is troubling.
The multi-organ pathology of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been demonstrated to include the brain and nervous system. Acute psychiatric symptoms have also been reported in several studies involving COVID-19 patients, and a growing body of research indicates that mental impairments may continue even after recovery from the initial infection.
Overall, a review indicates that COVID-19 survivors are at risk of mental sequelae but that symptoms usually recover with time. One study found brain abnormalities related to cognitive deficits, while numerous studies identified inflammatory markers correlating with symptoms.
There is some evidence that the body’s inflammatory response, namely the amounts of…
