How it is Affected after COVID-19
The coverage of the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 cases, numbers, and death characterized by Infection. Most of those Affected survive the disease, however, without prejudice to. How is it the people who have a severe COVID-19-the disease behind? Consequential damages are known?
Tens of millions of people worldwide have survived an infection with the Coronavirus already. The number of unreported cases is considered to be high, also because SARS-CoV-2 often causes little or no symptoms. If the Virus caused disease COVID-19 takes a more severe course, is not to recover the patients, however, often after weeks yet again. Expect a life-long late to follow?
Yet overall, little is known about Late and long – time of a Corona-infection consequences known, says Peter Berlit, Secretary-General of the German society for neurology. First information on the possible neurological consequences are been collected in the past few weeks. “Which were previously not known, the disease is still young.” With the pandemic progresses, Researchers find out more and more about the disease and consequential damages in Covid-19-Concerned. Patterns and relationships are identified. Here is an Overview:
Patients with a mild course without the hospital stay
The world health organization (WHO) estimates the proportion of the mild gradient of around 80 per cent of all cases. In the case of the Infected, the remember some of the Virus include, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), mainly cough (49 percent), and fever (41 percent) of the most common symptoms similar to a flu-like infection.
“The patients with whom we spoke, reported that the symptoms were sometimes very violent,” says Matthias Kochanek, a senior physician at the University hospital of Cologne. They had about stopped about ten to 21 days. “The duration felt in many patients, longer than known from a normal flu, for example,” says intensive care specialist. Yet this value cannot be considered but as a secured.
It is known that many patients feel after a mild course of the Infection right back in shape quickly. “Most of the patients have reported to us that they were fully robust,” says Kochanek. The recovery depends from case to case, and possible comorbidities.
Neurological Symptoms
Little is know so far about the taste and Riechveränderungen known, the observed gradients, a part of the Patients even with mild. “Observational studies show that this problem is in two to three weeks in the majority of patients,” says neurologist Berlit. In about five to ten percent of the cases, the fault no longer stay there.
Many of the Diseased interference reports in parallel to Smell supposedly also changes in the perception of taste, could be according to an analysis of the University hospital of Dresden is involved, an interpretation error. Most of the respondents can therefore distinguish the four tastes: sweet, sour, bitter and salty more fairly reliable, but not flavors, for which there is a need for an Interaction with the sense of smell.
Affected with severe progression of the disease without mechanical ventilation
About 20 percent of Corona infections are according to the WHO, so severe that inpatient treatment is required. Depending on the progression of the disease, the treatment differs. Some need because of shortness of breath oxygen, but can be on a normal station to be treated. “These patients have approximately a same shape as the patients with the mild course,” says intensive care physician Kochanek. “You need sometimes only a little longer in recovery.”
Others become ill slightly heavier and need a little more oxygen – for example via a small plastic hose under the nose. These stakeholders need in comparison to a mild course of significantly longer, approximately three to four weeks to be fully fit again, says Kochanek. “After the patients have left the hospital, they told us that they felt a lot of the time, limp and tired and not as powerful.”
Intensive care patients with severe progression of the disease and mechanical ventilation
The lung function of COVID-19-patients are so severely limited that such a supply of oxygen sufficient, in the case of increasing shortness of breath, you will be transferred to the ICU, in an induced coma and get a ventilator through a tube in the trachea. Such Intubation is fraught with risks.
So the lifting of the ventilation is a difficult process – the longer you lasted, the more the Breathing muscles needed are in addition to others are reduced. Especially in the case of Older, it is difficult, you back up to the state of the previously build. The lung is sensitive to Overpressure, and the oxygen added to the ventilation air. Lung tissue can be damaged irreparably. Also in other organs, artificial ventilation may cause damage.
The hoses may also create in addition to viral disease, a bacterial infection in the lungs. In almost all COVID-19-Concerned at the Cologne University hospital, such a second or even a third of the bacteria was observed caused inflammation of the lungs, reports Kochanek.
Long-term consequences of lung inflammation
Over long time about such a lung to follow inflammation no reliable statements can be made, according to the experts make. For greater gradients, such as with severe respiratory failure and long duration of Ventilation, were to be expected residual symptoms such as reduced lung volumes, says the physician Sven glasses from the Vivantes Klinikum Neukölln.
It is to recognize a pattern, says Kochanek: seriously ill COVID-19-Affected are in need of in comparison to Patients with other forms of lung inflammation much longer for your recovery. One of his first patients, 80 years old, recently was released into a rehab clinic. She was about three weeks after the carnival, in the clinic in mid-March.
Damage in the brain
In some patients, severe neurological disorders will be also visible – the so-called encephalopathies, so damage in the brain. “That expresses itself in restlessness and confusion, the performance of the memory can be affected,” says Berlit. Still, it lacks also a long-time knowledge. The fear is that such restrictions could remain over a longer period of time.
Thrombosis and strokes
Another risk is the long-time seizures, which are observed according to the Berlit, not only in patients who are severely ill COVID-19-Affected due to a higher tendency to Thrombosis frequently followed by shock. be What are the symptoms to remain back from suspension, especially from the affected area of the Brain. It also remains unclear what the consequences of epileptic seizures, which were observed in connection with a cytokine storm, an immune response to the corona of infection, be. If a epilepsy, as a permanent result, may remain after the infection back? “This is conceivable, but we don’t know yet,” says Berlit. (vb; Source: Lennart floor, dpa)
Authors and source of information
This Text meets the requirements of the medical literature, medical guidelines, as well as current studies and was examined by doctors and Medical scientists.