Sanjay Gupta on COVID 19 s Effect on The Brain
Sanjay Gupta on COVID-19's Effect on The Brain Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again. × Search search POPULAR SEARCHES SUGGESTED LINKS Join AARP for just $9 per year when you sign up for a 5-year term. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Leaving AARP.org Website You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.
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My motto “connection for protection” has taken on a whole new meaning. We may not be able to kiss and hug whomever we want, but we can certainly maintain and even create new enriching interpersonal relationships, and we should make that a priority. The pandemic has caused widespread emotional distress and increased risk for psychiatric illness, though we don't know yet if conditions like depression from COVID-19 are happening directly from the infection or if there are other things going on psychologically from the illness to complicate this evolving picture. What we do know is that leads to memory loss, and that loneliness is a risk factor for cognitive decline, dementia and even death. It becomes all the more imperative to fight back against loneliness and remain socially engaged. Tip: When asking about someone's well-being, probe more deeply and refuse to accept a generic “I'm doing fine.” Another tip, from my own life: Ask for guidance from people such as your parents. It lets them feel a degree of usefulness that can activate the mind. When you can, participate in virtual chats with friends and family. And when you can see people in person, focus on eye contact; it's more important than ever to ease the stress of masked faces. Plus, University of Chicago loneliness researcher Stephanie Cacioppo told me that the eyes, in particular, reflect more authentic emotion.
How Coronavirus Affects the Brain
Five steps to build long lasting mental and physical health
Sanjay Gupta’s Tips to Boost Your Brain Health After 20 years of practicing medicine, Michael J. Stephen, M.D., thought he had seen everything. Then COVID-19 hit his hospital. And then it hit him. A critical care pulmonologist at Thomas Jefferson University's Jane and Leonard Korman Respiratory Institute in Philadelphia, Michael had been caring for patients while protecting himself as best he could. Then he woke up one Saturday morning in May with a sore throat. By dinnertime, he was coughing, and an hour later, he spiked a fever of 103 degrees. “Where did I slip up?” he kept asking himself, agonizing over having brought home to his two school-age children and wife, all of whom subsequently became sick. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Jim Wright His family recovered relatively quickly, but Michael, 47, who had been triathlon-fit prior to the infection, wound up hospitalized, with a left lung filled with blood clots and a brain stuck in a deep fog. Indeed, he felt like he was losing his mind. The splitting headaches and overwhelming fatigue convinced him his brain was on fire. "I was doing things I wasn't aware of,” he now recalls. “I talked out loud in my room during isolation, and my wife kept asking me who I was talking to on the phone. I said nobody, not realizing that I was vocalizing the normal running dialogue we all have with ourselves. I remember thinking several times that I needed to tell my wife to keep my father away from the house — that he has cancer and that he could die if he came over. He did have cancer, but he died in 2007." Michael recuperated after six rocky, roller-coaster weeks. Nonetheless, he feels like something has been forever changed in his body. “There's always a bit of a whisper in the back of my mind, wondering if there will be long-term effects. Something could happen down the line.” He also thinks of his family members, who could now bear new risks for future health problems. His anxieties are valid. Four-fifths of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 have neurological symptoms, and although estimates vary, studies have found that at least half of people who recover from COVID-19AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine.
When we recover from colds, flus or even pneumonia, we don't often think about an aftermath punch to cognition — yet the connections have always been there. In fact, viruses such as the flu, measles, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and Zika have known neurological effects, as do other types of coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS. These stealthy connections are real, and we're just beginning to document the far-reaching insults that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has on the brain. Some of the most frequent symptoms recorded have been relatively mild, such as headaches, muscle pain and dizziness. But reports of encephalopathy, or altered brain function, in nearly a third of patients — with an increased risk of severe illness and death as a result — surprised the researchers. They were also surprised to find that neurologic manifestations as a whole were more likely to occur in younger people, though encephalopathy was more frequent in older patients.
The COVID-19 Brain
Entertainment $3 off popcorn and soft drink combos See more Entertainment offers > How this virus attacks the brain and nerves still isn't totally clear, but researchers are increasingly focused on two primary mechanisms: one direct and the other indirect. In the first, the virus cloaks itself and evades detection as it travels with precious nutrients across the blood-brain barrier and into the fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord. Once inside, the virus can inflict all sorts of damage to different parts of the brain, and we're still trying to understand this. Early reports reveal that the virus can exploit brain cells to make copies of itself and simultaneously suck up precious oxygen nearby, starving neighboring brain cells. In the other pathway, the virus waves its arms wildly and provokes a counterattack from the body's immune system, which leads to a complex array of immunological effects. Such effects can result in , including the brain. Some combination of these two interwoven paths is a possibility, too. "COVID is a chameleon of a disease,” says Richard Isaacson, M.D., a preventive neurologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and host of the American Academy of Neurology's COVID-19 video interview series. “COVID affects people in so many different ways and can wreak havoc on just about every organ system in the body. As an infectious disease with potential vascular, inflammatory and immunologic manifestations, it can have wide-ranging neurological effects.” Regardless of how exactly the virus harms the body, we now know that the impact of COVID-19 on the nervous system can be more significant and lasting than the transient loss of taste and smell that many of the first infected patients described. It can have devastating short- and long-term neurological complications — from , depression and “temporary brain dysfunction” to headaches, brain inflammation, brain bleeds and clots, nerve damage and life-threatening meningitis in both the young and old. Reports of psychosis have also been reported, with the journal Nature detailing the symptoms of one woman in her mid-50s who saw lions and monkeys in her house and accused her husband of being an impostor. A study published by The Lancet Psychiatry revealed that nearly half of the patients who were found to have “altered mental status” were younger than 60. Among my fellow neuroscientists, there are big questions that remain unanswered: Do these conditions — and potential brain changes — set the stage for serious long-term cognitive decline and dementia later on? And, most important, what can we do about it? These are five approaches that may offer hope. Ryan Johnson AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Maintain social connection in a physically distanced world.My motto “connection for protection” has taken on a whole new meaning. We may not be able to kiss and hug whomever we want, but we can certainly maintain and even create new enriching interpersonal relationships, and we should make that a priority. The pandemic has caused widespread emotional distress and increased risk for psychiatric illness, though we don't know yet if conditions like depression from COVID-19 are happening directly from the infection or if there are other things going on psychologically from the illness to complicate this evolving picture. What we do know is that leads to memory loss, and that loneliness is a risk factor for cognitive decline, dementia and even death. It becomes all the more imperative to fight back against loneliness and remain socially engaged. Tip: When asking about someone's well-being, probe more deeply and refuse to accept a generic “I'm doing fine.” Another tip, from my own life: Ask for guidance from people such as your parents. It lets them feel a degree of usefulness that can activate the mind. When you can, participate in virtual chats with friends and family. And when you can see people in person, focus on eye contact; it's more important than ever to ease the stress of masked faces. Plus, University of Chicago loneliness researcher Stephanie Cacioppo told me that the eyes, in particular, reflect more authentic emotion.