Evaluation of cognitive, mental, and sleep patterns of post-acute COVID-19 patients and their correlation with thorax CT

Abstract

Objective: In this study, we have evaluated the cognitive, mental, and sleep patterns of post-COVID patients 2 months after their hospitalization, and after scoring their hospitalization thorax CTs, we have compared the degree of the lung involvement with cognitive and mental states of the patients. Materials and methods: Forty post-COVID patients were included in our study. Patients who were hospitalized due to COVID-19 and who had thorax CT scan at the admission were included in the study. Thorax CT scans of the patients were scored using chest severity scoring (CT-SS). The Mini-Mental State Examination test (MMSE), the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test (MoCA), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and the Hamilton Depression and Hamilton Anxiety scales of all the participants were evaluated by the same person. Results: Early stage cognitive impairment was detected in 15% of post-COVID patients in the MMSE test and mean MMSE test score was 26.9 ± 2.1. The MoCA test detected cognitive impairment in 55% of the patients, and the mean MoCA score was 19.6 ± 5.2. Furthermore, all patients showed depressive symptoms in Hamilton Depression Scoring System and 57.5% of the patients showed anxiety symptoms in the Hamilton Anxiety Scoring System. The mean Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index of the patients was 10.7 ± 3.1, and it was found to be higher than normal. The mean CT-SS scores, which used to evaluate the lung involvement, of the patients were 4.7 ± 5.6. We did not find any correlation between patients’ cognitive tests and CT-SS scores. Conclusion: When these results are taken into consideration, our study has shown that the neuropsychiatric symptoms of the patients who had COVID-19 continued even after 2 months of their illness. Therefore, long-term rehabilitation of these patients, including cognitive education and psychological services, should be continued.