Clinical Phenotyping To Enable Targeted Treatment Of Persistent Cognitive Symptoms After COVID-19

People with ‘Long Covid’ describe memory and concentration problems.

Studies examining how people perform on memory and intelligence tests have found that patients who have had COVID-19 perform worse than those who have not. But to date, we don’t know why they have poorer cognitive function. Memory and concentration symptoms in ‘Long Covid’ are likely to have different causes in different people.

Some may have had direct infection or inflammation of the brain, or blockages to blood vessels in the brain. In others, underlying brain disease may have been ‘unmasked’ by COVID-19.

Some may have functional cognitive disorders, where memory and concentration problems are the result of changes in the brain’s ‘software’. In others, anxiety, low mood or fatigue may contribute to their symptoms. Each of these conditions has a different outcome and treatment.

This study aims to closely examine 100 people with persisting cognitive symptoms after COVID-19, assessing the cognitive problems as well as markers of brain damage, inflammation, and underlying degenerative brain disease.