Background and aims
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus, a severe respiratory distress syndrome, SARS-CoV-2 a global health emergency because of its rapidly transmissible nature, increasing mortality rate. Long-term sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection have become increasingly recognized and need and huge effort to prevent and care.
Methods
We set up a 3 months follow up of 160 patients, 82 women and 78 men, admitted in the Emergency Medicine COVID from October 2020 to March 2021. The mean age was 60 Asthenia, fever, cough myalgia, headache, anosmia, and ageusia are the most common primary symptoms.
Results
All the patients performed blood test, neuroimaging, respiratory and neurological assessment. We noticed a decrease in the laboratory findings inflammatory response The Chest CT showed significant pulmonary fibrosis in 70 patients. 80 patients had a neuropsychological conseguences, associated with depression, sleep impairment, anxiety, loss of memory and concentration, ageusia, anosmia, headache and global asthenia. Patients with pre-existent disease experienced a worsening, especially those with cognitive decline.
Conclusions
Currently, as we are still experiencing the pandemic and its effects, it is too early to describe the full clinical picture of post COVID syndrome. We need for more long-term clinical follow-up data to prevent long-term sequelae and post COVID Neurological Syndromes. We need ongoing neurological cognitive and affective monitoring of all cases of COVID-19 to formulate relevant prevention and intervention strategies. Finally, the economic impact of this disorder, together with patient care, must be worked out in advance.