April 27, 2021 at 6:00 am
For more than a year now, scientists have been racing to understand how the mysterious new virus that causes COVID-19 damages not only our bodies, but also our brains.
Early in the pandemic, some infected people noticed a curious symptom: the loss of smell. Reports of other brain-related symptoms followed: headaches, confusion, hallucinations and delirium. Some infections were accompanied by depression, anxiety and sleep problems.
Recent studies suggest that leaky blood vessels and inflammation are somehow involved in these symptoms. But many basic questions remain unanswered about the virus, which has infected more than 145 million people worldwide. Researchers are still trying to figure out how many people experience these psychiatric or neurological problems, who is most at risk, and how long such symptoms might last. And details remain unclear about how the pandemic-causing virus, called SARS-CoV-2, exerts its effects.
It’s Not Just You: COVID Brain Fog Can Linger For Months Refinery29 2 days ago Molly Longman
In mid-November 2020, Pamela Furr was cutting onions and noticed no tears were coming to her eyes. She couldn’t smell them, she realized. She got a COVID-19 test, and received her positive result the day before Thanksgiving.
After spending the holiday home with a terrible cough and body aches, she began to recover physically but by the last days of 2020, she still wasn’t feeling quite like herself. Mostly, she felt foggy. At first, she tried to write it off as lingering fatigue from the virus. But Furr, a radio news anchor in Nashville, TN, began to acknowledge that something else might be going on while she was reporting on the Christmas Day bombing that had severely shaken her city. “As I was trying to go down the list of things that happened as I usually do, I struggled,” Furr says. “I wasn’t sure what I was talking about. I had to go to commerci
Why getting back to normal may actually feel terrifying
After a year of anxiety, anger, and burnout, many people are struggling with returning to pre-pandemic behaviors. Experts weigh in on ways to work through the trauma.
BySharon Guynup
Email
Doctors are forecasting what some experts are now calling “the fourth wave” of the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts say the mental health impacts will be “profound and far-reaching,” likely outlasting the physical health impacts, and straining already-stretched mental health systems in the United States and worldwide.
While infections rage on in India and Brazil, case numbers in the U.S., Europe, and many other places have dropped dramatically and restrictions are lifting. But across the globe, many people are feeling lingering psychological effects from what has been a collective traumatic experience.