Brain complications in patients with severe COVID-19

Neurological and psychiatric complications observed in critically ill patients during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, shine new light on conditions which may be linked to coronavirus, finds new research co-led by UCL. The study, published in the Lancet Psychiatry , describes 153 patients treated in UK hospitals, who were deemed by doctors to represent the most severe cases. In patients where there was complete data (125 individuals), serious brain complications included stroke (62%, 77) and an altered mental state such as brain inflammation, psychosis and dementia-like symptoms (31%, 39). While it is not possible to draw conclusions about the total proportion of COVID-19 patients likely to be affected with similar complications, researchers say the report offers the first detailed snapshot of the breadth of neurological conditions in COVID-19 patients and should help direct future research to establish the mechanisms of such complications so that treatments can be developed. Co-author, Professor Sarah Pett (UCL  Institute for Clinical Trials and Methodology)  said: "This data represents an important snapshot of the brain-related complications of COVID-19 in hospitalised patients. It is critically important that we continue to collect this information to really understand this virus fully. "We also need to understand brain-complications in people in the community who have COVID-19 but were not sick enough to be hospitalised.