Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2023 Apr 19;13(1):6378. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-32939-0.
In this study, we aimed to examine different cognitive domains in a large sample of patients with post COVID-19 syndrome. Two hundred and fourteen patients, 85.04% women, ranged 26 to 64 years (mean = 47.48 years) took part in this investigation. Patients' processing speed, attention, executive functions and various language modalities were examined online using a comprehensive task protocol designed for this research. Alteration in some of the tasks was observed in 85% of the participants, being the attention and executive functions tests the ones that show the highest percentage of patients with severe impairment. Positive correlations were observed between the age of the participants in almost all the tasks assessed, implying better performance and milder impairment with increasing age. In the comparisons of patients according to age, the oldest patients were found to maintain their cognitive functions relatively preserved, with only a mild impairment in attention and speed processing, while the youngest showed the most marked and heterogeneous cognitive impairment. These results confirm the subjective complaints in patients with post COVID-19 syndrome and, thanks to the large sample size, allow us to observe the effect of patient age on performance, an effect never reported before in patients with these characteristics.
在这项研究中，我们旨在检查大量新冠后综合征患者的不同认知领域。214 名患者（85.04%为女性），年龄在 26 至 64 岁之间（平均 47.48 岁），参与了这项调查。使用专为该研究设计的综合任务方案，对患者的处理速度、注意力、执行功能和各种语言模式进行了在线检查。在 85%的参与者中观察到一些任务的改变，注意力和执行功能测试显示出最高比例的严重损伤患者。在评估的几乎所有任务中，参与者的年龄与年龄之间存在正相关，这意味着随着年龄的增长，表现更好，损伤更轻。在根据年龄对患者进行比较时，发现最年长的患者相对保持其认知功能保存完好，仅在注意力和速度处理方面存在轻度损伤，而最年轻的患者则表现出最明显和最具异质性的认知损伤。这些结果证实了新冠后综合征患者的主观抱怨，并且由于样本量较大，我们能够观察到患者年龄对表现的影响，这在具有这些特征的患者中以前从未报道过。
