Loss of Smell and Weakness Most Common Neurologic Symptoms of Long-Haul COVID-19

• While many of the immediate complications of COVID-19 are now well understood, physicians are still trying to understand and manage its long-term effects.
• In a new study, researchers discovered symptoms such as loss of smell, weakness, fatigue, headaches, and anxiety persisted in people who had recovered from acute COVID-19.
• New medical centers are starting to develop neurologic clinics specific to the manifestations of COVID-19.

As COVID-19 case numbers start to decrease throughout the United States, physicians throughout the country are starting to see an increase in neurologic and psychiatric symptoms among people who have recovered from the disease, a new study suggests.

Even with mild symptoms, the study — published this month in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry and led by a team at University College London — found that symptoms such as loss of smell, weakness, fatigue, headaches, and anxiety persisted in people even after recovering from COVID-19.

The research team identified 215 studies that involved more than 105,000 people from over 30 countries who had had COVID-19.

The studies were then analyzed, and the participants’ neurologic and psychiatric symptoms were assessed.

Symptoms with the highest rate were loss of smell (43 percent), weakness (40 percent), fatigue (38 percent), and either loss of or abnormal taste (37 percent).

“We had expected that neurological and psychiatric symptoms would be more common in severe COVID-19 cases, but instead we found that some symptoms appeared to be more common in mild cases,” lead author Dr. Jonathan Rogers, Wellcome Trust Clinical Fellow in the division of psychiatry at University College London, said in a statement.

“It appears that COVID-19 affecting mental health and the brain is the norm, rather than the exception,” he said.

According to Dr. Sara Martin, assistant professor of medicine and medical director of outpatient palliative care at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, “the most common neurologic symptoms vary widely among patients, from mild brain fog to difficulty concentrating on normal work tasks and, in some patients, severe cognitive impairment. We are also seeing patients with persistent headache as well as symptoms of numbness/tingling in extremities.”