Névoa cerebral após a infecção pela covid-19: um estudo com residentes no estado do Rio de Janeiro atendidos pelo SUS

Abstract

Recent studies point to neurological and behavioral changes in subjects exposed to COVID-19. Attentional capacity and the recording of new information are among the cognitive functions that may suffer the greatest functional impact after infection. These alterations have been called brain fog, a process in which the individual contaminated by the coronavirus presents symptoms such as mental confusion, problems with forgetfulness, concentration and slow thinking. The present study aims, through neuropsychological evaluation, to investigate the characteristic symptoms of brain fog caused by COVID-19 infection in residents of Rio de Janeiro seen at the Post-Covid Outpatient Clinic of Pedro Ernesto Hospital through a neuropsychological assessment using the WAIS-III Digits instruments, the Psychological Attention Battery and Rey's Auditory-Verbal Learning Test. We attended 75 patients (mean age 47.93 years). From this population sample, 74,66% (56 people) were female and 25.33% (19 people) were male. Results indicate that 81,33% of the sample was below expectations in global cognitive functioning, 97,33% had changes in the attentional cognitive capacity score, 47,29% did not reach the expected score in the Digits test, and in the learning index 53,33% of the sample did not achieve the expected result. Thus, this study is expected to expand the knowledge about brain fog and encourage the implementation of intervention strategies for this population.