Avaliação neuropsicológica em pacientes com Covid longo: caracterização clínica e correlação com o gene APOE4

Abstract

Cognitive changes are being described in patients with Long COVID syndrome, which may affect cognitive performance and quality of life in more than a third of infected patients. We performed a cross-sectional study with patients followed in a post-COVID neurological outpatient clinic. Patients were recruited from July to August 2020. Patients over 18 years of age, with a positive nasal swab PCR or serological test for COVID, and post-COVID neurological symptoms that persisted for more than three months from the start date were included in the study. of the infection. Eighty participants were included in the final sample, of which 57 had objective and subjective cognitive complaints in the initial evaluation with the neurologist. Patients were evaluated, on average, 14.6 months after COVID-19. We found that 64% of the sample showed cognitive decline, and 32% of the subjects showed more than one domain affected after a neuropsychological assessment. The most affected cognitive functions were episodic memory and executive functions, with emphasis on the RAVLT and Stroop tests. There was no significant association between hospitalization, depression and the APOE 4 allele when comparing individuals with and without cognitive impairment. On the other hand, individuals with less than 12 years of schooling had a higher frequency of cognitive decline than patients with more than 12 years of schooling (p=0.003). We highlight a high frequency of cognitive decline in the studied population, which is better evaluated through a broad neuropsychological assessment, an essential diagnostic tool for detecting objective cognitive declines not previously identified in a screening test.