Neurological Complications of COVID-19 Infection
Since the onset of the SARS-Coronavirus infection pandemic in December 2019, the medical community has been intrigued by a set of symptoms that distinguish this infection from others. The enigma of unusual symptoms such as inability to smell (anosmia), loss of sense of taste (ageusia), and intense, acute, unexplained headaches gained the ominous status of potential indicators of this potentially fatal disease. Anosmia and ageusia undoubtedly indicate the involvement of the cranial nerves.
Our understanding of this virus and its widely pervasive nature has significantly expanded since then. Here, I aim to summarize some of the devastating neurological effects of the Coronavirus for the awareness of healthcare professionals and the general public. The fundamental concept underlying all these extra-pulmonary (outside the lungs) symptoms is the virus's multifarious antigenicity, or its ability to mimic the structural framework of various organs and the immunological components of the human nervous system. The resulting diseases are understood to be autoimmune in nature.
- Brain Stroke: The most common serious neurological complication of Covid infection. Possible mechanisms include thrombo-embolic events closely associated with a widespread phenomenon of micro-clot formation in the small arteries or veins of the brain, cutting off the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the brain tissue. This results in paralysis of the face or extremities, loss of speech, or, in extreme cases, death due to severe swelling of the brain or serious brain hemorrhage. An autoimmune inflammation of blood vessels (vasculitis) in the brain.
- Cerebral Venous Thrombosis: Covid can cause big or small clots inside the veins of the brain's network, leading to blood damming up in the brain, causing bleeding, fatal brain swelling, and paralyzing consequences of brain damage.
- Seizures: Abnormal jerky movements of the body along with loss of consciousness, known as fits, result from abrupt electrical shut-down of brain circuits.
- Guillain-Barre Syndrome: An eponymous disorder of peripheral nerves and nerve radicles (Acute Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyradiculoneuropathy) can cause paralysis of the face, extremities, and, most importantly, of the breathing muscles requiring mechanical ventilation.
- Polymyositis: An autoimmune indiscriminate inflammation and weakness of all muscle groups, adversely affecting the ability to stand, walk, speak, swallow, and, worse still, to breathe.
- Myasthenia: Covid autoimmune disorder can involve the neuromuscular junction transmission, obstructing the passage of commanding signals from nerves to muscles.
- Critical Illness Neuropathy and Critical Illness Myopathy: Debilitating disorders of the nerves and muscles, often witnessed in any illness requiring long-term ICU stay, and the Covid infection certainly has acquired this dubious distinction in the present times of the pandemic.
- Brain Death: Ultimately, any condition, including Covid infection, that causes oxygen and blood-flow deprivation to the brain for a prolonged duration will result in a coma, a persistent vegetative state of the body, or the ultimate event, the demise of the individual. However, despite the ubiquitous and variegated nature of these Covid-related complications, over 99% of affected individuals survive, left with a variable degree of disabilities and deficits that can be partially or fully treated with a combination of physiotherapy and certain neuro-immunological medications.
Please visit or contact Dr. Sweta Adatia at www.topneurologistdubai.com (https://www.topneurologistdubai.com/) for more information and treatment of the neurological complications arising from the Covid-19 virus.