Rakiya A.Muhammad
Fatigue, shortness of breath, and cognitive dysfunction are the most common symptoms of Long COVID, or post COVID-19 condition, according to Dr Janet Diaz, Team Lead Clinical management, Infectious Hazard Management, World Health Organization, (WHO).
“These are the types of symptoms that people have been reporting. There are 200 such symptoms described in the literature by people who have post-COVID symptoms, but these three are the most common,” said the expert speaking on WHO’s series -Science in 5 on COVID-19: Update on Long COVID.
“People who were very active before contracting COVID-19 now observe shortness of breath. And Cognitive Dysfunction is a fancy term for what is referred to as brain fog. This means people are having trouble with their attention, concentration, executive functioning.”
She added cardiovascular symptoms present in different ways, including shortness of breath and heart palpitations. Dr Diaz noted a recent report that looked at patients who had COVID-19 and followed them a year after.
The report, which came out of a cohort in the United States, found an increased risk of cardiovascular complications in the cohort.
“That cohort has been described as having had stroke, acute myocardial infraction which means heart attack or other causes of thrombosis or blood clot and death,” she highlighted.
“So, they did report an increased risk of death in that one year after the acute COVID-19 infection.”
When To Be Concerned
The Team Lead pointed out: “In our case definition, we say people should worry about three months after acute COVID-19 illness.”
She explained it gives some people the time to recover from the acute infection, even if they’ve had a mild disease or more severe disease.
“After three months, we say If you have one of these symptoms, then be concerned that you could have the post-COVID-19 condition and get
evaluated.”
Symptoms Duration
If the symptom goes away after a week or a month, they do not consider it as long as COVID-19.
“If it lasts for more than two months, then we say we are concerned that it may be long COVID, post-COVID-19 condition,” she stated.
“Patients may experience symptoms for more than six months, and there are reports of people experiencing protracted symptoms for up to a year or more than a year.”
Patient-Centred Treatments
The expert asserted because they have described the condition as different symptoms that affect multiple systems of the body, then the treatment is not one treatment for all patients.
“The treatment has to be patient-centred and focused on the symptoms the patient is presenting with,” she stressed.
On drugs for the post-COVID-19 interventions, she said they do not have any as such. “But we do have rehab interventions or self-management techniques to help people improve their quality of life while they still have these symptoms and have not fully recovered.”
One of these self-management techniques could be that if you have fatigue, then do not over-exert yourself.
“When you are feeling fatigued, try to do your activities at a time in the day that you don’t feel fatigued. If you have cognitive dysfunction, don’t multitask,” she advised.
“Don’t have many screens up at the same time or try to do many things. Try to focus on one activity.” She added: “If you have insomnia-trouble sleeping, work on sleep hygiene techniques and interventions.”
The clinical management lead also said WHO recommends the care of patients with post-COVID-19 conditions should be done in a coordinated, integrated way,
She explained:” At the centre of the care model should be someone who knows you- your primary care physician, a general practice clinician that knows you. Then they can reach out to different specialists in an integrated way if you need evaluation by a specialist.”
Diaz highlighted such specialists to include a neurologist, a cardiologist, a pulmonologist, or a mental health specialist, noting, “this type of care model, we think is most optimal for patients living with postal COVID-19 conditions.”
