Dr Rachel Brown: Why are some COVID-19 patients suffering from neurological complications?

A recent study carried out at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, UCLH, on confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients has found neurological complications of the virus can, in some rare cases include delirium, brain inflammation, stroke and nerve damage.

We spoke to Dr Rachel Brown, an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow involved with the study to find out more.

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COVID-19 could cause delirium, brain inflammation and stroke

A study carried out on a small number of confirmed or suspected Covid-19 patients at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery has linked the coronavirus to a number of neurological conditions.

Can you tell us about your research?

COVID-19 is still predominantly a respiratory illness, but in a small subset of patients we’ve been seeing neurological symptoms and syndromes.

Some of the early studies from Wuhan showed that around a third of patients were having neurological symptoms. In those early descriptions a lot of the symptoms that people were describing included things like headache and dizziness, loss of smell and things that could just really be attributed to viral illness.

As we gained more experience, we noticed other cases appearing that looked a little bit different. We have information from...

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