The Cognitive FX Blog
Your source for everything you need to know about traumatic brain injury and concussions.
Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
Long COVID symptoms such as fatigue, muscle weakness, joint pain, poor endurance, and respiratory problems can have a significant impact on your daily routine. Some long COVID patients’ symptoms are so severe that they need a reduced work schedule or are no longer working due to their illness. Persistent symptoms can follow both mild COVID and cases that required treatment in the ICU.
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Brain Injury Awareness | Brain Safety & Care
Neural fatigue can develop after any type of brain injury, including mild traumatic brain injury (concussion), severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), hypoxia, viral infection, stroke, or transient ischemic attack. It might surface immediately or after some time and can last for months or even years. It can also develop in patients with neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and dementia.
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
Long COVID is real. Data shared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from the Household Pulse Survey (July/August 2022) show that more than 40% of adults in the United States have had COVID-19, and nearly one in three of them (approximately 30%) experience symptoms for more than three months after their original acute infection. Not all patients with long COVID are severely affected, but the report estimates that two to four million Americans are currently unable to work because of persistent COVID symptoms.
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
Memory and attention problems are common in long COVID patients: A recent study showed that 70% of COVID long haulers experience memory and concentration difficulties for months after their initial disease. If you’re one of them, you might struggle to focus on work, forget where you left your keys, struggle to remember an acquaintance’s name, or space out unintentionally during a conversation.
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Brain Injury Awareness | Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
COVID-19 can cause cognitive symptoms in some patients, such as short-term memory loss, difficulties concentrating, problems recalling words, and brain fog (a condition known as long COVID). While most initial studies focused on patients hospitalized with severe COVID symptoms, it became apparent that most long COVID patients developed their condition after only a mild case of COVID.
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Brain Safety & Care | Concussions | Traumatic Brain Injury
Headache pain is the most common symptom after a traumatic brain injury, with up to 90% of patients experiencing this symptom for at least a few days after suffering a concussion. These headaches can also develop after other causes of head trauma, such as bacterial and viral brain infections, carbon monoxide poisoning, “chemo” brain, transient ischemic attack, and COVID-19.
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Brain Safety & Care | Education & Resources | Post Concussion Treatment
After headaches, dizziness is the second most common symptom patients experience after a concussion. Although this symptom often resolves by itself, it becomes persistent and debilitating for some patients. If patients experience dizziness or other concussion symptoms for more than three months, they may have post-concussion syndrome (PCS).
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
If you’ve been experiencing headaches for weeks, or even months, after your initial COVID infection, you are not alone. Headaches are one of the most common neurological symptoms being experienced by COVID-19 long-haulers, and some patients even experience daily, persistent headaches. But they’re often just one of many symptoms long COVID patients report. Other common symptoms include fatigue, brain fog, gastrointestinal issues, and more.
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources | Youth
When the pandemic started, we were told that children wouldn’t be seriously affected by the virus. And while most children only experience a mild version of the disease, evidence shows that some children are at risk of developing persistent symptoms after their initial COVID-19 infection.
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
More than two years since the COVID-19 pandemic started, the list of symptoms caused by the virus keeps getting longer. In addition to the most common symptoms of a persistent dry cough, fever, and shortness of breath, many patients experience an array of seemingly random body changes both during and after the acute phase of the disease. We’ll discuss a number of them, including but not limited to:
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Brain Safety & Care | Concussions | Post Concussion Treatment
Have you ever caught yourself holding your breath while doing something challenging? Or feeling lightheaded and breathing faster when you stand up after sitting for a long time? Maybe you often have rosy cheeks without a reasonable cause, like exercise.
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
Your heart races when you stand. You hate the dizzy spells. Your head hurts, you’re exhausted, and you can’t think clearly like you used to.
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
Fatigue is a common symptom of viral infection, and having fatigue with a COVID-19 infection is no exception. But the severity and longevity of that fatigue is what sets COVID-19 apart from the common cold or even the flu. You might…
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
Many patients have heard of the most common long-term effects of COVID-19: symptoms such as breathing issues, brain fog, and constant fatigue. But there is mounting evidence that COVID-19 may also affect sexual health negatively in both men and women. Men who hadn’t previously had problems of this nature have started developing erectile dysfunction (ED) after their COVID-19 infection.
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Brain Injury Awareness | Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Patient Stories
You’d think a family of eight with the foresight to pull their children out of school earlier than the rest of the nation would be safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, seven out of the eight family members contracted the coronavirus at the very beginning of the pandemic, back when testing was frustratingly difficult to obtain, and our knowledge about the disease was limited.
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
While recovering from COVID-19, you may find yourself getting breathless easily from activities that didn’t used to tire you, like carrying laundry or walking up the stairs.
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
If you’ve been feeling fuzzy-headed and have been struggling to concentrate since you’ve had COVID-19, you’re not alone. Even months after the disease, some patients still can’t shake the feeling that their brain is lost in a maze. Many describe it as walking through a fog, unable to see where they’re going.
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
A growing body of scientific evidence suggests some COVID-19 patients will experience neurological signs or symptoms of the infection. Genetic material from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been found in the cerebrospinal fluid of a person with COVID-19. And the virus has been found in the brain tissue of patients who died of COVID-19, which suggests it can affect the nervous system.
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Brain Safety & Care | COVID | Education & Resources
Even after you've recovered from the acute symptoms of COVID-19, you might find yourself struggling with short-term memory loss, concentration issues, and other cognitive symptoms. If it's been weeks (or even months) since you had COVID-19, it can feel like there is no reason why you should still feel this way. These lingering symptoms after initial recovery from COVID-19 have become known as “long COVID” and can have a debilitating effect on your life.
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Brain Injury Awareness | Brain Safety & Care | Concussions | Post Concussion Treatment
Many people have neck pain after a concussion or whiplash injury. It may show up immediately after your injury or weeks to months afterward. That pain may involve stiffness, tension, sharp pain, and pain associated with certain movements or behaviors (e.g., looking at your phone). The pain may feel deep or superficial.
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