Page 72 - Coespu 2020-2

MEDICAL

phase, and the higher mortality of are preliminary or unpublished. The aetiology of the psychiatric
SARS and MERS might be correlated In patients with severe illness requi- consequences of infection with co-
with poorer psychiatric outcomes. ring ICU admission, neurocognitive ronavirus is likely to be multifac-
The information available sug- impairment might be a feature. The torial and might include the direct
gests that in the acute stage (as researchers found only three cases effects of viral infection, including
in SARS and MERS) confusion is of SARS-CoV-2-related psychia- brain infection, cerebrovascular

a common feature, so delirium tric symptoms that were explicitly disease (including in the context
is probably a signifi cant clinical linked to hypoxic or encephalitic of a procoagulant state), the de-
problem. In the longer term, the brain injury; this fi nding is consi- gree of physiological compromise
data from SARS and MERS suggest stent with the rarity of case reports (eg, hypoxia), the immunological
that the prevalence of depression, that have associated detection of response, medical interventions,
anxiety, post-traumatic stress di- coronaviruses in the CNS with acu- social isolation, the psychologi-
sorder, and fatigue might be high, te encephalitis or encephalomyeli- cal impact of a novel severe and
but as yet data on these diagno- tis (mainly in immunocompromi- potentially fatal illness, concerns
ses in patients with COVID-19 sed or immunodefi cient children). about infecting others, and stigma.

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