Mixed
Medium-term recovery from moderate-to-severe SARS-CoV-2 infection is characterized by persistent multi-organ MRI abnormalities, significantly reduced exercise capacity, and impaired cognitive performance, which correlate with the severity of the initial acute illness.
If you have been hospitalized for COVID-19, do not assume you are fully recovered just because you are discharged. Expect potential long-term effects on your lungs, heart, brain, and energy levels. Seek medical evaluation for persistent breathlessness or fatigue, and consider a gradual, monitored return to physical activity rather than pushing through symptoms, as your exercise capacity may be significantly reduced.
At 2-3 months from disease-onset, 64% of patients experienced breathlessness and 55% reported fatigue. On MRI, abnormalities were seen in lungs (60%), heart (26%), liver (10%) and kidneys (29%). Patients exhibited changes in the thalamus, posterior thalamic radiations and sagittal stratum on brain MRI and demonstrated impaired cognitive performance... Exercise tolerance... and six-minute walk distance were significantly reduced. The extent of extra-pulmonary MRI abnormalities and exercise intolerance correlated with serum markers of inflammation and acute illness severity.
Why this rating
Observational cohort study with matched controls, but small sample size (n=58) and single-center design.
Source
Medium-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on multiple vital organs, exercise capacity, cognition, quality of life and mental health, post-hospital discharge
Betty Raman et al. · EClinicalMedicine · 2021
DOI 10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100683
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