Long Covid ‘is a very debilitating condition with serious cognitive conditions,’ says researcher behind new study

The author of a new study discussed the damaging impacts for “long Covid” patients, people whose symptoms last months after initially becoming infected.

“Our work and the work of others has shown that this affects people’s abilities to make plans, synthesize information, and do their daily activities of work,” said David Putrino, the Director of Rehabilitation Innovation at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. “They suffer from a lot of memory loss and inability to form new memories, as well as difficulty with speaking. This is a very debilitating condition with serious cognitive conditions.” 

In Putrino’s study researchers examined how long Covid can affect people’s ability to work, and they found nearly half of all “long-haulers” surveyed said they were not able to return to full employment. The study also found that nearly two-thirds of long-term Covid patients report “brain fog,” which includes memory loss. 

Putrino underscored to CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” that long Covid is a “very real problem,” and that more attention needs to be paid to providing long-term care to impacted patients. 

“It is affecting people of all ages and it doesn’t seem to discriminate on who it’s going to strike down after an acute event,” said Putrino. “We need to organize, and we need to start getting government groups involved in providing long-term care for patients who have been sick over a year now with no real end in sight.”