Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Oct;178(8):802-807.
doi: 10.1016/j.neurol.2022.03.014. Epub 2022 May 13.

Prevalence and prospective evaluation of cognitive dysfunctions after SARS due to SARS-CoV-2 virus. The COgnitiVID study

C Vialatte de Pémille  1 , A Ray  2 , A Michel  3 , F Stefano  3 , T Yim  3 , C Bruel  4 , M Zuber  2
Affiliations

Prevalence and prospective evaluation of cognitive dysfunctions after SARS due to SARS-CoV-2 virus. The COgnitiVID study

C Vialatte de Pémille et al. Rev Neurol (Paris). 2022 Oct.

Abstract

Objective: COVID-19 due to SARS-CoV-2 virus is a new cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Little is known about the short-term cognitive prognosis for these patients. We prospectively evaluated basic cognitive functions shortly after care in the intensive care unit (ICU) and three months later in post-ICU COVID-19 patients.

Material and methods: We performed a prospective single-center study in our institution in Paris. Patients with SARS-CoV-2 SARS were prospectively recruited via our ICU. Patients were evaluated using standardized cognitive tests at baseline and at three months' follow-up. Our primary endpoint was the evolution of the following five global tests: MMSE, FAB, oral naming test, Dubois five words test and MADRS.

Results: We explored 13 patients at baseline and follow-up. All patients had cognitive impairment at baseline but they all improved at three months, significantly on two of the five global tests after Bonferroni correction for multiple testing: MMSE (median 18 (IQR [15-22]) and 27 (IQR [27-29]) respectively, P=0.002) and FAB test (median 14 (IQR [14-17]) and 17 (IQR [17,18]) respectively, P=0.002).

Conclusions: We report here the first longitudinal data on short-term cognitive impairment after intensive care in COVID-19 patients. We found acute and short-term cognitive impairment but significant improvement at three months. This pattern does not seem to differ from other causes of post-intensive care syndrome.

Keywords: COVID-19; Cognitive disorder; Critical care syndrome; Executive function; SARS-CoV-2.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Significantly improved median cognitive scores between baseline and follow-up. Error bars represent interquartile ranges. Black lines represent normal expected scores.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Guan W.-J., Ni Z.-Y., Hu Y., Liang W.-H., Ou C.-Q., He J.-X., et al. Clinical characteristics of Coronavirus disease 2019 in China. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:1708–1720. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2002032. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Helms J., Kremer S., Merdji H., Clere-Jehl R., Schenck M., Kummerlen C., et al. Neurologic features in severe SARS-CoV-2 infection. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:2268–2270. doi: 10.1056/NEJMc2008597. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Folstein MF, Folstein SE, McHugh PR. “Mini-mental state”. A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. J Psychiatr Res. 1975;12:189–198. doi: 10.1016/0022-3956(75)90026-6. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Dubois B, Slachevsky A, Litvan I, Pillon B. The FAB: a Frontal Assessment Battery at bedside. Neurology. 2000;55:1621–1626. doi: 10.1212/wnl.55.11.1621. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Azouvi P., Vallat-Azouvi C., Joseph P.-A., Meulemans T., Bertola C., Le Gall D., et al. Executive functions deficits after severe traumatic brain injury: the GREFEX Study. J Head Trauma Rehabil. 2016;31:E10–E20. doi: 10.1097/HTR.0000000000000169. - DOI - PubMed