Pardis Zarifkar, lead author from the Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark, explained, “More than two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the precise nature and evolution of the effects of COVID-19 on neurological disorders remained uncharacterized.
The increased risk of most neurological diseases was, however, no higher in COVID-19-positive patients than in people who had been diagnosed with influenza or other respiratory illnesses.COVID-19 patients did have a 1.7 times increased risk of ischaemic stroke in comparison to influenza and bacterial pneumonia in patients over 80 years of age.
Pardis Zarifkar added, “We found support for an increased risk of being diagnosed with neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular disorders in COVID-19 positive compared to COVID-negative patients, which must be confirmed or refuted by large registry studies in the near future.
Reassuringly, apart from ischemic stroke, most neurological disorders do not appear to be more frequent after COVID-19 than after influenza or community-acquired bacterial pneumonia.”.
Reference: Frequency of neurological diseases after COVID-19, influenza A/B and bacterial pneumonia, presented at the EAN Congress 2022.