The study found that people who contracted Covid were 39 percent more likely to develop depression and 35 percent more likely to develop anxiety.
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Some studies indicate that some Covid patients develop depression and anxiety.
The New York Times columnist Ann Helen Petersen spoke to a communications professor who has noticed an astonishing trend of solace and despair in conversations among those with long-standing Covid-19 in online communities. While many of the symptoms of long-term Covid are well known at this point – fatigue, shortness of breath and mental fog – Anne’s conversation with the communication researcher has prompted her to consider the subtle effects that long-term Covid can have on our mental health.
The newspaper spoke with its reporter Pam Belloc, who covers the long-running “Covid” disease, and asked her the following questions:
What do we know about mental health and long-term “Covid”?
There are two types of related relationship that people see, the paper said. Long-term Covid is a very complex constellation of up to 200 symptoms, often depression and anxiety, among them.
One large study analyzed the electronic records of more than 150,000 Covid patients and compared them to people who did not have Covid. None of the Covid patients included in the study had been treated for mental health conditions in the two years prior to their infection with the Corona virus, which allowed researchers to focus on the problems that patients developed after contracting Covid.
The study found that people who were infected with “Covid” were 39 percent more likely to develop depression and 35 percent more likely to develop anxiety, during the year after recovering from the initial “Covid” infection compared to people who did not have “Covid” at the same time. the time.
The other thing that is being reported is that people who were previously diagnosed with depression or anxiety seem to be at a somewhat higher risk of developing long-term Covid disease. Post-Covid clinics have found that when they ask patients about their past medical history, a number of these patients report having experienced depression or anxiety in the past.
For example, a study of the first 100 patients who showed up at the Covid Neurology Clinic run by Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago found that 42 percent of those people reported having previously had depression or anxiety.
The newspaper pointed out that depression and anxiety are very common in American society, so this is not necessarily surprising, but it appears to be somewhat more common in people who develop long-term Covid, and doctors do not know the actual cause.
Also for people who already suffer from depression or anxiety, the long-term development of Covid could make their mental health symptoms worse, according to therapists and others who treat these patients.
Why do people with long-term COVID-19 have mental health problems?
Nobody knows for sure. The best ideas suggest that there may be a number of factors that contribute to this.
There have been many studies looking at the potential effects of COVID-19 on the brain. Researchers still have many more questions than answers, but there is some work that has indicated that the same inflammatory reaction and immune response that Covid causes in the rest of the body can also affect the brain.
The evidence doesn’t really show that the virus itself often penetrates the brain, but studies have found that the inflammatory reaction that Covid causes throughout the body also causes inflammation in the brain. This can contribute to brain fog and cognitive problems, which we’ve heard a lot about, and it can also contribute to mood and mental health problems. For example, one of the experts the newspaper spoke with said that inflammation in the brain can disrupt the ability to produce serotonin, which plays a role in regulating mood and sleep.
What other factors could explain this?
Just Covid-19 may have an effect, apart from the brain changes that may occur. If you have long-term COVID symptoms, such as fatigue, brain fog, or breathing difficulties, it’s no surprise that these issues can affect your mental health as well. And if you’re not able to work the way you used to – you’re unable to return to work, exercise, or be active and engaged with your family and friends – it stands to reason that these struggles can cause anxiety and depression for people.
And that becomes a kind of vicious circle. You feel tired. This fuels depression. You may feel stressed because of your depression. This tension may fuel some anxiety. So it is a very integrated picture with different symptoms that are overlapping and connected.
The author believes that it is beneficial for people and society as a whole to try to understand how physical and brain symptoms work together and realize that people should not be stigmatized because of mental health issues associated with Covid disease.
Transferring it to Arabic at the disposal of: Al-Mayadeen Net