1 year after illness

Post-Covid syndrome: many sufferers are still suffering

One year after contracting Covid-19, a significant proportion of those affected still suffer from limitations such as fatigue, concentration problems and anxiety.

Laura Zamarian from MedUni Innsbruck's Department of Neurology and her co-authors surveyed the subjectively perceived and objectively testable limitations of 74 Covid-19 patients from 2020. This took place one year after the acute illness.

The mean age of the test subjects was 56 years. 42 percent were women. 32 percent had suffered from a comparatively mild infection (care at home), 45 percent had been hospitalized and 23 percent had received intensive care.

Hospitalized patients were more frequently affected than patients without a hospital stay.

Forscherteam rund um Laura Zamarian

Cognitive deficits
"Hospitalized patients (of post-Covid symptoms; note) were more frequently affected than patients without hospitalization," the experts wrote in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology. "Overall, the most common cognitive deficits were found in attention (23 percent), memory (15 percent) and executive functions (three percent, e.g. flexibility, planning, decision-making, motivation; note)."

In terms of subjectively perceived limitations, however, exhaustion (51 percent), anxiety (30 percent), slight distraction in everyday situations and depression (15 percent) were in the foreground.

"Anxiety and states of exhaustion have a greater influence on patients' perceived limitations in daily life than objectively identifiable cognitive deficits."