COVID-19 Pandemic Might Cause a Wave of Brain Damage

In some of the cases reported, the novel coronavirus could cause a wave of brain damage in the confirmed coronavirus patients. This has been declared after a British research study has released. According to the recent study conducted in the University College London, the consequences of acquiring coronavirus have a severe neurological impact on the human brain that includes stroke, brain inflammation, and nerve damages inside the body. These harmful actions might still occur even if the infected individual is not showing any symptoms of COVID-19.

Case study for brain damage due to COVID-19 infection

There is no proper study conducted that might suggest that the coronavirus epidemic can cause a wave of brain damage in a large scale population. There will be several follow up studies that are necessary to provide proper results and understanding to completely able to acknowledge the long term damaging consequences of coronavirus pandemic.

This study suggests that coronavirus might cause a wave of brain damage used 43 coronavirus patients that were being treated at the University College London Hospitals for the time duration from April to May.  The age of patients varied from 16 to 85, and their symptoms also varied from mild to critical.

Out of 43 coronavirus patients, 10 cases were seen to be suffering from temporary brain damage and delirium, 12 patients were diagnosed with inflammation of the brain, 8 suffered from a stroke, and 8 cases of nerve damage as the dire consequences of COVID-19 infection.

These coronavirus patients that were diagnosed with brain inflammation with a rare and a specific type of life-threatening condition called Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). Before the coronavirus outbreak in England, the same research team in London used to get only one ADEM patients in a month, but as the coronavirus pandemic worsened in the region, the number of patients rose to one patient per week.

As the wave of brain damage that might occur after suffering from coronavirus infection, hallucinations are bound to occur. One woman who suffered from the brain damage hallucinated monkeys and lions inside her house. Numerous other cases reported disorientation, double vision, and numbness in their face and limbs. One critical patient was barely conscious and only able to respond to pain stimuli.

No compelling evidence has surfaced yet that could provide why the coronavirus patients re suffering from these neurological complications. The coronavirus infectious pathogen that is the root cause of the disease is not found in the cerebro-spinal fluid, which suggests that the virus does not directly affect any part of the brain. There is a theory that provides a link between the wave of brain damage and coronavirus. This neurological damage to the body occurs after the indirectly triggering of a specific immune response when the coronavirus pathogen affects other parts of the body.

Treatment of brain damage

Those coronavirus positive patients who are asymptomatic are hard to diagnose with neurological dysfunction, and it might progress and ultimately becomes life-threatening. If the wave of brain damage is diagnosed in the early stages, patients can be fully recovered back without causing any significant damage to the brain and nerves of the body. Those COVID-19 positive patients who are in critical conditions, also limiting the amount of testing and investigations done on them.

By further testing of the neurological dysfunction in the body and its treatment would be possible after several clinical trials of coronavirus infected patients. The long term damages due to coronavirus are not yet known as the infectious pathogen is only diagnosed a few months earlier, and for the first time. Those doctors and healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients should be aware of the possible neurological complications as their early diagnosis could affect the outcomes in a positive way for the patient.

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