Image: PA Image: PA CONTRACTING COVID-19 IS “robustly associated” with an increased risk of developing mental health and neurological conditions in the six months after a diagnosis, a study suggests.
The findings also suggested that the incidence of such conditions rose with the severity of a coronavirus case, with a neurological or psychiatric diagnosis occurring in 39% of those who were admitted to hospital, 46% of those in intensive care, and 62% in those who had encephalopathy – described as “delirium and other altered mental states” – during their Covid-19 infection.
Paul Harrison, professor of psychiatry at the University of Oxford and the study’s lead author, said: “These are real-world data from a large number of patients. They confirm the high rates of psychiatric diagnoses after Covid-19, and show that serious disorders affecting the nervous system occur too.
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Another study author, Masud Husain, professor of neurology and cognitive neuroscience at the University of Oxford, added that although it was known coronavirus “can access the brain”, the evidence it affects neurons is “quite low”.