Clinical investigations have argued for long-term neurological manifestations in both hospitalised and non-hospitalised COVID-19 patients. It is unclear whether long-term neurological symptoms and features depend on COVID-19 severity. From a sample of 208 consecutive non-neurological patients hospitalised for COVID-19 disease, 165 survivors were re-assessed at 6 months according to a structured standardised clinical protocol. Prevalence and predictors of long-term neurological manifestations were evaluated using multivariate logistic regression analyses. At 6-month follow-up after hospitalisation due to COVID-19 disease, patients displayed a wide array of symptoms; fatigue (34%), memory/attention (31%) and sleep disorders (30%) were the most frequent. At neurological examination, 40% of patients exhibited neurological abnormalities, such as hyposmia (18.0%), cognitive deficits (17.5%), postural tremor (13.8%) and subtle motor/sensory deficits (7.6%). The authors concluded that older age, premorbid comorbidities and severity of COVID-19 were independent predictors of neurological manifestations in logistic regression analyses. Moreover, premorbid vulnerability and severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection impact on prevalence and severity of long-term neurological manifestations.
Pilotto A, Cristillo V, Cotti Piccinelli S, Zoppi N, Bonzi G, Sattin D, Schiavolin S, Raggi A, Canale A, Gipponi S, Libri I, Frigerio M, Bezzi M, Leonardi M, Padovani A. Long-term neurological manifestations of COVID-19: prevalence and predictive factors. Neurol Sci. 2021 Sep 15:1–5. doi: 10.1007/s10072-021-05586-4.