One of the ways long COVID presents itself, commonly known as “brain fog,” is particularly devastating to those suffering with it, say doctors.
The New York Times recently reported that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, more Americans say they have problems with memory, making decisions and other cognitive issues than at any time in the last 15 years.
It’s as common as other long COVID symptoms and continues to appear in adults in their 30s and 40s and has been reported to keep people out of work.
“If you can take the example of an engineer who works with computers and has to process the information and write down the data and do all kinds of mental calculations and make decisions, they cannot do that because they cannot process the information,” said Dr. Naheed Van de Walle, a rehabilitation physician with Hartford HealthCare.
“I had a patient who had to give up the practice of law because of these brain fog symptoms,” she said. “And I have patients who are physicians who obviously have a lot of problems if they have brain fog. So it affects everyone basically, even if you’re not working.”
Related: UConn study to test cognition training games to improve Covid-related ‘brain fog’
Van de Walle said she has not seen the issue as much in older people.
“I don’t see that. I see younger people, mostly between I would say 30s to 60s, and some patients are in their 20s,” she said. “And I don’t see that high an incidence in older people. So I think that’s something that we have to revisit and look at it, because it’s not really true that it’s always older people in their 80s.”
Brain fog, which is a loss of cognitive ability, “is very debilitating,” Van de Walle said.
It includes “memory deficits, word-finding problems, processing information. Short-term memory is the most devastating and I see that in my patients who are 30-something. It’s not all the people. These are very productive people. They’re…
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