Coronavirus patients may experience forgetfulness: Expert

ISTANBUL

The health problems that arise after the coronavirus are not only related to the lungs, some patients also experience a serious forgetfulness problem, an expert has said.

Though the world experienced a two-year pandemic, the long-term impact of the virus on the human body has just began to be learned, stated Sibel Velioğlu, a neurology specialist from Black Sea Technical University (KTÜ).

Stating that forgetfulness comes at the forefront of these long-term effects, Velioğlu noted that almost 20 percent of patients have forgetfulness problem after the coronavirus.

“We see this problem in 10 to 20 percent of our patients who have had COVID-19. The World Health Organization [WHO] also draws attention to the forgetfulness problem these days due to increasing complaints about forgetfulness,” Velioğlu explained.

“This problem appears about three months after COVID-19 and continues for at least two months. In other words, the post-COVID-19 condition is mild but lasting, affecting the person’s ability to do daily activities and return to work,” she noted.

Answering the question of which patients experience the forgetfulness problem most, Velioğlu pointed out that studies have tried to associate determining factors linked to the forgetfulness problem with the severity of the disease, age or gender.

The latest data from multiple studies, on the other hand, showed that the prolonged post-coronavirus condition is unrelated to a person’s gender, age, severity of the COVID-19 disease or whether there is an underlying disease, that is, it can happen to all patients, she explained.