Cognitive Changes in Post-Covid-19 Patients: A Narrative Review Study

Abstract

The aim is to understand the cognitive changes in post-Covid-19 patients. This is a narrative literature review study that adopted the time frame (2019-2022). The Boolean descriptors in Health Sciences (DeCS) were used: "Brain" AND "Pandemic" AND "Cognition". The search was carried out on national and international scientific platforms such as: Virtual Health Library (VHL), APA Psycinfo (American Psychological Association), Scopus (SciVerse Scopus), PubMed (National Library of Medicine) from July to November 2022. From reading the material, categories were defined according to the cognitive changes presented in the studies. The Covid-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) is neuroinvasive, that is, it is capable of penetrating the cells of the nervous system and therefore presents a variety of cognitive manifestations. The main cognitive changes caused by Covid-19 infection, according to the reviewed literature, are changes in memory, attention and executive functions. Patients with severe infections or neurodegenerative diseases, women, elderly people or people with intellectual or cognitive disabilities are among the people most vulnerable to the development of these changes. However, symptoms and complaints may vary depending on the individual's pre-morbid state and lifestyle. Therefore, those cognitive manifestations brought significant impacts on people's functionality and quality of life