More Than Half of Hospitalised COVID Patients Develop These Neurological Symptoms

According to the Spanish Neurology Society, more than half of all COVID patients (57%) who have been hospitalised develop some type of neurological symptoms which for 4% of has caused fatal complications.

The research carried out in March focuses on all hospitalised COVID cases in the province Albacete and reviews a total of 841 patients. The main study that has been carried out in China illustrated that 36% of COVID-19 patients went on to develop neurological symptoms, compared to 57% in this Spanish study.

The most frequent neurological manifestations collected are confusional syndrome or mild-moderate encephalopathy, stroke, anosmia/hyposmia, headaches and epilepsy. However, Spanish neurologists have also treated other, although less frequent, cases of severe encephalopathy or coma, encephalitis, polyradiculoneuropathies, movement disorders, facial paralysis or paralysis of oculomotor nerves.

“While some nonspecific symptoms such as headache or dizziness may be directly associated with virus infection, we believe that some neurological complications of COVID-19, especially the most serious ones, occur as a consequence of hyperactivation of the immune system, known as ‘cytokine storm’, so you can also expect autoimmune complications from the immune response, rather than from the virus itself” explained Dr. Lainez.

Learning as much as possible about the virus is essential to combat the crisis and recently Spain has recorded its worst figures in the last two months.