New Evidence Suggests Long Covid Could Be a Brain Injury
medscape.comAs someone with a TBI and several linked issues (military) I can say that if long COVID brain fog is similar it’s a tough road. The number one thing that helped me was lowering my stress; once that was done I started having far more “good” (high performance) days than “bad” (days where I was notably having cognitive issues).
Generally now it’s tied to my anxiety; if I can prevent a spiral I’m fine and operate at my previous normal. Preventing a spiral is the issue…
Something happened to me within the last couple of years that has me questioning my cognitive abilities as well. Have you found any mitigating factors for the spiral? I’ve become a lot more aware of the subconscious things that used to be mysterious to me.
"He contends that treatments used for patients who have brain injuries have also been shown to be effective in treating long COVID–related brain fog symptoms. These may include speech, cognitive, and occupational therapy as well as meeting with a neuropsychiatrist for the treatment of related mental health concerns."
Is that a brain injury, or just... mental health challenges? I was expecting something more permanent but in practice if occupational therapy and such work then it implies a significant psychological feedback loop component at least.
They work for everything, including distress and fatigue associated with cancer or severe injury. It doesn't imply a significant psychological component, it just means humans are always extremely highly influenced by therapy-like approaches as social creatures.
If it’s similar to the TBI issues I’m familiar with (myself and others I know) then the mental health is an actual area of focus for improvement.
You can kind of think of it as unloading your mental processes because the damage either took some offline or rewired them. By improving your mental state and gaining new tools you can compensate for that.
That’s a layman’s way of looking at it that’s probably very wrong to a neuro/psych professional, but I think it’s close enough to explain the basics.
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New study suggests short covid loss of taste and smell could be signs of brain damage
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New study suggests COVID brain damage can lead to aggressive driving
Welcome to healthcare science, pretty much all of it is like this while the actual groundbreaking papers get 2-3 citations and no replications each.