Younger Covid-19 patients - long haulers

  • Context: COVID 
  • Thread starter Thread starter jim mcnamara
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Covid-19
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around the phenomenon of long-haulers in the context of COVID-19, particularly focusing on younger patients and their experiences with prolonged symptoms following infection. It encompasses various studies and reports on the medium- to long-term effects of COVID-19, as well as anecdotal evidence from individual cases.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants highlight that long-haulers experience severe to moderate symptoms long after the initial infection, requiring ongoing medical management.
  • One participant questions whether younger patients are discussed separately in the referenced studies and how their experiences compare to older patients.
  • Several recent pre-prints are shared, focusing on the medium- to long-term effects of COVID-19 on various health aspects, including cognitive function and quality of life.
  • A participant shares a personal account of a 54-year-old man experiencing severe and recurring health issues post-COVID-19, illustrating the distressing cycle of symptoms and hospitalizations.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not appear to reach a consensus on the specific experiences of younger COVID-19 patients as long-haulers, and multiple viewpoints regarding the severity and management of symptoms persist throughout the discussion.

Contextual Notes

The discussion references various studies and anecdotal evidence but does not resolve the differences in experiences or outcomes among different age groups of long-haulers.

jim mcnamara
Mentor
Messages
4,789
Reaction score
3,852
TL;DR
Clinical paper claims young Covid-19 long haulers have months of symptoms regardless of severity of the disease process at the outset.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.14.20212555v1

This is a link to the abstract - the pdf preprint has a link on the same page.

Long-haulers are patients who have severe to very moderate symptoms. When they are post infection some contiue having stroing symptoms. These are called 'long-haulers'. Apparently, medical management of the symptoms is required for long periods, i.e., months, long after most patients in their "cohort" have already resumed normal lives.

As an introduction to Covid-19 long-haulers:
Here is a lecture aimed at medical professionals - it is short and any science trained person should get a lot out of it. Start at 0:50 in for a discussion of a datatset published back in July which is interesting but limited to patients with acute disease, unlike the above paper which was a sample from moderate to severe disease.

 
Last edited:
  • Wow
Likes   Reactions: Fervent Freyja
Biology news on Phys.org
I only skimmed the abstract for the paper and watched the first few minutes of the video. The mean age of the subject group in the video was 56, and in the paper it was 44. Are young patients discussed separately in the paper or video? How do their numbers compare to these older patient groups?
 
A few more recent pre-prints on the medium- to long-term effects of COVID-19:

Medium-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on multiple vital organs, exercise capacity, cognition, quality of life and mental health, post-hospital discharge
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.15.20205054v1

Three-month outcomes in hospitalized COVID-19 patients
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.16.20211029v1

Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from COVID-19 relative to controls: An N=84,285 online study
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.20.20215863v1

Attributes and predictors of Long-COVID: analysis of COVID cases and their symptoms collected by the Covid Symptoms Study App
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.19.20214494v1
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: jim mcnamara
since getting sick with the Coronavirus in March, Mr. Long, 54, has fallen into a distressing new cycle — one that so far has landed him in the hospital seven times.

Periodically since his initial five-day hospitalization, his lungs begin filling again; he starts coughing uncontrollably and runs a low fever. Roughly 18 days later, he spews up greenish-yellow fluid, signaling yet another bout of pneumonia.

Soon, his oxygen levels drop and his heart rate accelerates to compensate, sending him to a hospital near his home in Clarkston, Mich., for several days, sometimes in intensive care.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/health/covid-hospital-readmissions.html
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: StoneTemplePython

Similar threads

  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • · Replies 12 ·
Replies
12
Views
2K
  • · Replies 19 ·
Replies
19
Views
3K
  • · Replies 47 ·
2
Replies
47
Views
10K
  • · Replies 8 ·
Replies
8
Views
2K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
1K
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
2K
  • · Replies 12 ·
Replies
12
Views
3K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
3K
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
2K