One in five COVID-19 patients develop mental illness within 90 days - study
Source: Reuters
One in five COVID-19 patients develop mental illness within 90 days - study
Kate Kelland
LONDON (Reuters) - Many COVID-19 survivors are likely to be at greater risk of developing mental illness, psychiatrists said on Monday, after a large study found 20% of those infected with the coronavirus are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder within 90 days. Anxiety, depression and insomnia were most common among recovered COVID-19 patients in the study who developed mental health problems, and the researchers also found significantly higher risks of dementia, a brain impairment condition.
“People have been worried that COVID-19 survivors will be at greater risk of mental health problems, and our findings ... show this to be likely,” said Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at Britain’s Oxford University. Doctors and scientists around the world urgently need to investigate the causes and identify new treatments for mental illness after COVID-19, Harrison said. “(Health) services need to be ready to provide care, especially since our results are likely to be underestimates (of the number of psychiatric patients),” he added.
The study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal, analysed electronic health records of 69 million people in the United States, including more than 62,000 cases of COVID-19. In the three months following testing positive for COVID-19, 1 in 5 survivors were recorded as having a first time diagnosis of anxiety, depression or insomnia. This was about twice as likely as for other groups of patients in the same period, the researchers said.
The study also found that people with a pre-existing mental illness were 65% more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 than those without. Mental health specialists not directly involved with the study said its findings add to growing evidence that COVID-19 can affect the brain and mind, increasing the risk of a range of psychiatric illnesses.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-mental-illness/one-in-five-covid-19-patients-develop-mental-illness-within-90-days-study-idUSKBN27P34L
= new reply since forum marked as read
A top emergency room doctor at a Manhattan hospital that treated many coronavirus patients died by suicide on Sunday, her father and the police said.
Dr. Lorna M. Breen, the medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, died in Charlottesville, Va., where she was staying with family, her father said in an interview.
The elder Dr. Breen said his daughter had contracted the coronavirus but had gone back to work after recuperating for about a week and a half. The hospital sent her home again, before her family intervened to bring her to Charlottesville, he said.
Dr. Breen, 49, did not have a history of mental illness, her father said. But he said that when he last spoke with her, she seemed detached, and he could tell something was wrong.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/nyregion/new-york-city-doctor-suicide-coronavirus.html
I guess she didn't really survive Covid-19.
I contract some unknown virus back in the 70s that left me with CFIDS. (Crushing fatigue, brain fog, a temperature regulation problem, drenching night sweats, and an immune dysfunction.) And I thought I had it bad.
Hope your problems diminish over time, as mine seem to have - after decades.
What really sucks is that assholes thought I was faking it. Unless you live in the midst of RW assholes, that won't happen to you.
Good luck!
... so Chumpcare would never have covered it.
