When Covid-19 hits the brain, it can cause strokes, psychosis and a dementia-like syndrome, new survey shows
A new survey reveals a wide range of serious psychiatric and neurological complications tied to Covid-19 — including stroke, psychosis, and a dementia-like syndrome. The study underscores how aggressively the coronavirus can attack beyond the lungs, and the risk the disease can pose to younger adults.
The study looked at 125 hospitalized patients with Covid-19 who also had some sort of neuropsychiatric complication. Fifty-seven had had an ischemic stroke, caused by a blood clot in the brain. The second most common issue, affecting 39 patients, was an altered mental state, researchers reported. That included encephalitis (an inflammation of the brain that can cause a number of symptoms, from confusion to mobility problems) and encephalopathy (a general term for a disease that alters brain function). Ten patients were newly diagnosed with psychosis, and six had cognitive issues akin to dementia, according to the study, published in the Lancet Psychiatry.
