A Study to Determine the long-term effects of COVID-19 on ability to Concentrate
The term “COVID brain fog” has become a hashtag on social media, often used in a lighthearted way to denote the mental lapses that many of us are experiencing from the stress of the pandemic
But for COVID-19 long-haulers, who recover from the acute phase of the illness but continue to experience symptoms for weeks or even months, the term denotes something much more serious: It describes memory loss, concentration issues, and other cognitive problems that make it hard to get through a normal day.
Other common signs of ongoing impairment, nicknamed long-COVID, include exhaustion and body aches.
Brain fog isn’t a technical term, but a shorthand way to describe an array of symptoms that affect thinking. Each person exhibits a different combination of issues, which can include confusion, memory loss, and difficulty recalling words, slow thinking, trouble focusing, and easy distractibility.
Long-haulers describe a range of short-term memory issues that wreaked havoc on daily life: walking to the cabinet to get detergent while doing laundry and then forgetting why, or staring at the computer trying to write, sometimes not recalling the topic and other times grasping for the proper word. Many further complain that the brain fog affects their work, with some struggling to stay productive and others leaving their jobs because they find it impossible to function.
“The Foundation is Recruiting 5,000 Volunteers with COVID-19 for a long-term Longitudinal Study of the Effects of COVID-19 on Memory & Activities of Daily Living.”
Synopsis:
The Foundation has established a Forum and set up Groups, Chats & Blogs and a Dedicated Mobile Daily Tracking Applet that is used to evaluate the long-term effects of COVID-19 on Thought, Memory & Effects on Daily Activities of Living
- The Incidence & Prevalence of this condition among COVID Long-haulers
2. The spectrum of Mentation disorders among Long-haulers–symptoms
3. Measurement of baseline and CNS physiologic values
4. Treatments & Ways to Alleviate
5. Development of a Disability Index for COVID Long-haul Confusion
Groups will be sorted by condition and tracked and monitored for a period of up-to twelve months and the Foundation will publish findings. A follow-on project is contemplated to examine the underlying genomic alleles to determine the underlying mechanisms associated with COVID Brain Fog.
Together these projects will build a Registry that includes data, a patient registry & tissue libraries.