Bozman Mack E, Rajaram Manoharan Senthil Vel Rajan, Vasavada Tarak
Psychiatry, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, Huntsville, USA.
Psychiatry, Huntsville Hospital, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, Huntsville, USA.
Cureus. 2022 Sep 3;14(9):e28725. doi: 10.7759/cureus.28725. eCollection 2022 Sep.
Care for geriatric patients can be difficult due to the complex nature of age-related comorbidities, multiple medications, and cognitive decline; this hardship multiplies when psychiatric illness or dementia are present and often exacerbates existing issues. Millions of lives have been lost in the COVID pandemic, and it has also severely harmed our collective mental health and cognition. The elderly population has felt that this impact the greatest as they are at the highest risk of isolation, cognitive inactivity, loneliness, and depression, all of which are risk factors for dementia. Studies associate loneliness with a 40% increase in the risk of dementia; thus, this pandemic and resulting isolation have likely caused an increase in cognition loss of the elderly. Furthermore, there is a documented bidirectional relationship between COVID-19 and psychiatric illness, both of which increase the likelihood of the other and are associated with worsening mental cognition. We present a case series of two patients with pre-existing psychiatric illness and cognitive decline, both exacerbated by COVID-19 infection, causing further decline in cognition.
由于与年龄相关的合并症、多种药物治疗以及认知衰退的复杂性，老年患者的护理工作可能会很困难；当存在精神疾病或痴呆症时，这种困难会成倍增加，并且常常会加剧现有的问题。在新冠疫情中，数百万人失去了生命，它还严重损害了我们的集体心理健康和认知。老年人群体受此影响最大，因为他们面临隔离、认知活动减少、孤独和抑郁的风险最高，而所有这些都是痴呆症的风险因素。研究表明，孤独会使患痴呆症的风险增加40%；因此，这场疫情及由此导致的隔离很可能导致了老年人认知能力的下降。此外，有记录表明新冠病毒与精神疾病之间存在双向关系，两者都会增加对方发生的可能性，并与精神认知的恶化有关。我们展示了一个包含两名患有既往精神疾病和认知衰退患者的病例系列，他们的病情都因新冠病毒感染而加重，导致认知能力进一步下降。
