Aside from dealing with everything else that COVID-19 has brought the world, medical experts are currently working hard to better understand what's exactly causing long-COVID symptoms that persist for months after an infection of the virus.
According to a ScienceAlert report, a new study has identified 203 different long COVID symptoms through 10 different organ systems in the body, emphasizing just how prevalent and diverse the affliction is, not to mention how it can affect many different aspects of people's daily lives.
The study authors behind this research, who have all experienced, or continued experiencing long COVID symptoms themselves, are calling for nationwide screening programs to catch more occurrences of Long COVID, including more accurate clinical guidelines for the condition's description.
Neuroscientist Athena Akrami from the University of College London said, while there has been a lot of public discussion about long COVID, there is little systematic research that investigates this population.
Hence, explained to the neuroscientist, relatively little is known about its range of symptoms, and their progression over time, the severity, as well as the expected clinical course, its effect on daily functioning, and anticipated return to baseline health.
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The most commonly reported long COVID symptoms, according to Mayo Clinic, include fatigue, post-exertional malaise or symptoms that worsen after physical or mental effort, and brain fog or cognitive dysfunction.
Unique Approach
In this unique approach, Akrami said, "we have gone directly" to long haulers all over the world to establish a foundation of evidence for medical study, improvement of care, and support for the long COVID population.
With 3,762 people quizzed through 56 nations in all, the international research, Characterizing long COVID in an international cohort: 7 months of symptoms and their impact, published in EClinicalMedicine, is the biggest and most wide-ranging look yet at the manner long haulers are continuing to have problems way beyond the COVID-19 infection's normal timescale.
The most commonly reported long COVID symptoms, according to Mayo Clinic, include fatigue, post-exertional malaise or symptoms that worsen after physical or mental effort, and brain fog or cognitive dysfunction.
Other symptoms are visual hallucinations, sexual dysfunction tremors, memory loss and diarrhea, an entire range of cognitive and physical health problems.
As specified in the study, on average, participants reported about 55.9 symptoms each through 9.1 organ systems. Out of the more than 3,700 respondents with long COVID, 2,454 had experienced symptoms for at least six months.
All that takes a toll, the researchers wrote, 45.5 percent of respondents said they had decreased their working hours, 22.3 percent were not working, totally, during the survey.
Impact of Vaccination on Long-COVID Haulers
The study authors said in their research, by seven months, a lot of patients haven't recovered yet, mainly from systematic and neurological or cognitive symptoms.
Many of them have not returned to previous work levels as well and continued experiencing substantial symptom burden.
There's a lot that remains unknown about long COVID, although the picture is slowly turning clearer. Symptoms seem to fade after vaccination, although only for some patients, while research has also shown that women are at greater risk of long COVID.
Essentially, around one in every 10 people who get infected with COVID-19 are thought to still be experiencing some symptoms longer than 12 weeks after getting positive test results. Considering the transmission of the virus globally, the expert said, millions of people are likely to be affected.
The researchers now want to see tests that cover neurological and neuropsychiatric symptoms, not to mention the cardiovascular and respiratory ones, to catch more people who continue struggling with COVID-19.
Akrami said there would likely be tens of thousands of long COVID haulers suffering discreetly, uncertain that their symptoms are associated with COVID-19.
Related information about Long COVID symptoms is shown on Mayo Clinic's YouTube video below:
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