{"id":17085,"date":"2020-03-24T17:08:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T16:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/covid-19-and-neurology\/"},"modified":"2025-04-21T13:25:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T11:25:57","slug":"covid-19-and-neurology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/covid-19-and-neurology\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 and neurology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a>The main manifestations of infection with the new COVID-19 coronavirus include dry cough, fever, malaise and, in severe cases, respiratory distress.<\/a>  The agent responsible is the SARS-Cov-2 virus, a beta-coronavirus very similar to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In general, <strong>direct involvement of the nervous system by SARS-Cov-22 is considered to be limited.<\/strong> However, a high percentage of <strong>indirect neurological problems<\/strong>, related to the inflammatory response and prothrombotic state associated with the infection, failure of other organ systems (e.g. respiratory failure, renal failure) and prolonged immobility, can be expected. <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Along these lines, in a series of 214 patients admitted in Wuhan (China), about one third of the subjects (36.4%) had neurological symptoms, including cerebrovascular disease, decreased level of consciousness, and muscle lesions (Mao et al, 2020). The case of a patient with diffuse encephalopathy without signs of infection in the cerebrospinal fluid also supports indirect involvement of the nervous system by SARS-Cov-2 (Filatov et al, 2020). <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In contrast, <strong>previous studies in humans and experimental animals have shown that the SARS coronavirus is capable of infecting the nervous system, especially at the brainstem level<\/strong> (Ly et al, 2020). This data suggests that respiratory distress may have a central component, apart from the respiratory component. The mediator of access to the nervous system and other cells could be the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor (Baig et al, 2020). From the clinical point of view, isolated cases of acute encephalitis of benign course associated with COVID-19 have been described (Encephalitis Society, 2020).   <\/p>\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Among the neurological symptoms associated with COVID-19 is <strong>acute confusional syndrome or diffuse encephalopathy<\/strong>.  <\/h4>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This condition is very frequent in critically ill patients and especially in the elderly with previous cognitive impairment. It is characterized by an acute deterioration of mental status, including a variable combination of inattention, temporal and spatial disorientation, disturbance of sleep-wake rhythms, visual hallucinations, delusions and psychomotor agitation.   <\/p>\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Another common neurological condition in critically ill patients is neuromyopathy of the critically ill.  <\/h4>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It consists of a generalized loss of strength resulting from muscle or peripheral nerve involvement. Although this problem is generally reversible, it makes it difficult to withdraw mechanical ventilation and requires a prolonged rehabilitation process. <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It has also been reported that 30% of\npatients infected with COVID-19 consult for loss of smell (anosmia) or\nloss of taste (ageusia). Although there are neurological diseases that can\nproduce these symptoms, the most likely origin is a mucosal\ninvolvement of the nasal mucosa, as in other respiratory infections.   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The main manifestations of infection with the new COVID-19 coronavirus include dry cough, fever, malaise and, in severe cases, respiratory distress. The agent responsible is the SARS-Cov-2 virus, a beta-coronavirus very similar to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus. In general, direct involvement of the nervous system by SARS-Cov-22 is considered to be limited. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[652,551],"tags":[792,793,687,794,738],"class_list":["post-17085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19-en","category-news-and-current-events","tag-anosmia-en","tag-covid-and-neurology","tag-covid-19-en","tag-loss-of-smell","tag-neurologyhri"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17086,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17085\/revisions\/17086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neurologiaclinica.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}