Researchers Identify a New Symptom of Long COVID – Brain Fog

Of the numerous lingering signs reported in sufferers with lengthy COVID, greater than 65 % in a single research reported mind fog.

Sarah Gromko is a speech-language pathologist with the Hartford HealthCare Rehabilitation Network in Stratford. She works with COVID long-hauler patients who’re experiencing mind fog, or issue concentrating and a diminished reminiscence.

Speech-language pathologists consider and deal with all features of folks’s communication expertise (comprehension, talking, studying, writing, conversational expertise, non-verbal communication) in addition to cognitive-communication expertise that may impair a particular person’s capacity to speak successfully (consideration, reminiscence, group, reasoning, judgement).

When it involves mind fog after COVID, Gromko is a component of an inter-disciplinary staff that treats many alternative after-results of COVID, reminiscent of cardiology, pulmonology and respiratory remedy. She works with sufferers with mind fog utilizing comparable individualized methods used for different problems that have an effect on cognitive communication.

“We use a lot of meta-therapy, basically teaching people how to teach themselves,” she stated. “We use strategies on how to cope with their changing cognition and the way their brain is functioning differently now.”

Gromko’s sufferers with mind fog should not in a position to perform the best way they did prior to a COVID infection. Many of the sufferers are excessive functioning people, however have discovered it tough to pay attention at work and wrestle with processing new info.

“The best advice is to allow yourself to rest,” she stated. “Allow your brain to rest when it needs it and when you can, exercise your brain and your body.”

For some folks although, they must discover ways to do issues in a different way than they did previous to an infection.

“A lot of our patients never had to write notes down to remember things,” she stated. “One strategy we teach is to write things down, minimize distractions and focus on one thing at a time. It is about giving yourself the grace of processing things a little more carefully.”

While most individuals are juggling a number of issues directly – work, youngsters, errands and extra, Gromko advises that it’s useful to create a schedule and work on one process at a time.

“Things can get overwhelming and our brains will shut down if we put in too much information and can’t process it,” she famous. “You have to stop at some point because you will make yourself more tired by trying to force it.”