After recovering from COVID-19, or coronavirus , or some may call it CCP Virus, many people have developed new COVID-like symptoms, which is named Coronavirus sequelae. Medical experts recommend an early diagnosis and treatment.
According to the clinical definitions of Worldwide Health Organization (WHO) in October 2021, “Long-term COVID-19” symptoms usually appear on someone who has been diagnosed COVID-positive. This usually happens three months after the infection. The symptoms usually last at least two months and nothing else is available for the diagnostic interpretation.
Long-term COVID-19 symptoms may include extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain and tightened sensations, change of smell and taste, joint pain, brain fog which is the decline in memory and focus.
Wu Ching-yi, president of Taiwan Occupational Therapy Association pointed out that brain fog is a cognitive disorder. It mainly manifests in loss of memory and concentration. Patients often have difficulty concentrating, while their thinking process becomes slower, to the point where they can’t even express what they want vocally.
A new study at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, Australia, also discovered that “Long Term COVID-19” can lead to brain fog and even memory loss in patients. The study followed 128 patients for 12 months; results show about 20 percent developed severe brain fog or amnesia over a period of up to one year.
Healthy Infinity Scheme, organized by Hong Kong Lutheran Social Service (LC-HKS) aims to promote primary health care. On June 16 2022, they hosted an event online, namely “Seminar on Senior Care During the Pandemic,” to discuss the relationships between cognitive impairment and COVID-19 sequelae.
Professor Benny Zee Chung-ying of the Department of Public Health at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, recently proposed that even after young people or adults with mild symptoms recover, the risks of developing cognitive impairment are greatly increased.
Professor Zee suggested that patients should order an Automatic Retinal Image Analysis (ARIA), to screen for the potential hidden danger of suffering from brain fog. He also encouraged family members and patients to exercise and strengthen cognitive skills by playing table games. This will greatly prevent and avoid conditions from deteriorating.
Other research also discovered that meditation helps repair brain cells damage.
A joint report written by Dr. George Slavich, a psychoneurologist and psychiatrist at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Dr. David Black, a preventive healthcare specialist at the University of Southern California, shows that people who meditate have longer telomeres than people who do not.
When cell telomeres shorten, the phenomenon indicates aging and apoptosis of the cells. The results, however, confirm that the speed of aging in the cells slows down through meditation.
Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, also found in her study that people who regularly meditate to the age of 50 have as much frontal cortex (the gray matter of the frontal lobe) as the young people aged at 25.
The gray matter of the frontal lobe controls our intelligence and during the aging process, the gray matter volume will gradually decrease, resulting in cognitive decline and its function degeneration.
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