It is widely acknowledged that Covid-19 can result in various neurological issues, such as brain fog. However, recent research by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire has discovered that Covid-19 may also cause a condition where recognizing familiar faces becomes challenging and navigational issues may arise.
Annie, a woman 28 years of age, was diagnosed with Covid-19 in 2020, and she experienced recurring symptoms a few months later. The researchers collaborated with her to address her issues. She began to experience problems recognizing her family members' faces and had spatial navigation issues like difficulties recalling the locations of specific sections in the grocery store or the car parking space.
Annie underwent several tests conducted by researchers to evaluate her condition. In one of the tests, she was shown the faces of 60 celebrities and was able to recognize only 29% of the familiar faces, while people in the control group identified 84% of the familiar celebrities. In another test, she was asked to recognize a celebrity’s face by his/her given name, and she was successful 69% time. Finally, in the Cambridge Face Memory Test, she was required to observe 6 person’s faces and distinguish those faces. Annie managed to do this in only 56% of instances, while the success rate is 80% for the control group participants. These test results reveal that Annie has difficulty learning new identities and she was also unable to recall the name or information of a famous person she was familiar with earlier.
Researchers collected data from almost 100 people who had long Covid to evaluate if other Covid-19 patients had similar issues. Most of the respondents suffering from long Covid reported a decrease in their cognitive abilities since they had contracted Covid-19. Additionally, a significant majority of individuals in the long Covid group reported facing challenges in performing tasks that they could previously do without any problems.
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