Latest news with #OpenForumInfectiousDiseases
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
People with Covid-like symptoms took almost a year before feeling like themselves again, researchers say
Did you have Covid-like symptoms? It may take nine months or even longer to start feeling like yourself again. Researchers at UCLA found that 20 percent of patients with those symptoms continued experiencing suboptimal quality of life for nearly a year after infection. Whereas, physical well-being returned after only three months. "We have newly recognized the difference in recovery with respect to mental vs. physical well-being after a COVID infection," Lauren Wisk, an assistant professor of medicine at UCLA, said in a statement. "The findings showed that health care professionals need to pay more attention to their patients' mental well-being after a Covid infection and provide more resources that will help improve their mental health, in addition to their physical health,' she added. Wisk was one of the lead authors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded study that was published Tuesday in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases. The study compared people who sought treatment for Covid-like symptoms. Of those, 75 percent tested positive for the virus. The rest were negative. Of the 4,700 participants who experienced the symptoms between mid-December 2020 and late August 2022, the people who were positive for Covid were statistically likelier to return to optimal health-related quality-of-life than their Covid-negative counterparts in the year following the infection. The authors said the findings suggest that health authorities may have previously underestimated the long-term effects of non-Covid infections on a patient's well-being. To reach these conclusions, researchers analyzed responses from nearly 1,100 Covid-positive patients and 317 Covid-negative negative patients, assessing aspects including physical function, anxiety, depression, fatigue, social participation, sleep disturbance, pain interference and cognitive function. They found that approximately one in five of those who were part of the study remained in poor overall quality of life, with a high likelihood of self-reporting long Covid for up to a year after initial infection. 'In this large, geographically diverse study of individuals with 12 months of follow-up after Covid-19-like illness, a substantial proportion of participants continued to report poor [overall quality of life], whether or not the inciting acute symptoms were due to SARS-CoV-2 or another illness,' they said. Mental well-being recovered gradually, with significant improvements manifesting between six and nine months after infection, researchers found. The authors said further research was needed, noting that it remains unclear which conditions the symptomatic Covid-negative patients were suffering from and that Covid tests can yield both false-positive and false-negative results. The common cold, allergies, flu and Covid share many similar symptoms. "Future research should focus on how to improve the treatment models of care for patients who continue to experience Covid-19 symptoms and their impact on patients' quality of life, especially as one in five patients may continue to suffer over a year after their initial infection, which likely reflects long Covid," Wisk said.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Still Not Feeling the Same After COVID-19? You're Not Alone
Credit - Getty Images Most people have put the COVID-19 pandemic behind them. Infections, vaccinations, or a combination of both have bolstered people's immunity, and while new variants continue to pop up, getting sick does not induce the same panic it once did. But a new study shows that recovery from COVID-19 might not be as quick or straightforward as most of us now expect. The study, published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, found that on average, it takes many people up to three months to return to good physical health after a COVID-19 infection, and nine months to recover good mental well-being. For up to 20% of infected people who were analyzed in the study, this mental-health recovery took even longer: up to a year or more. Lauren Wisk, assistant professor in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, and her team looked at data from people who had COVID-19 at eight health facilities across the U.S. from Dec. 2020 to Aug. 2022. People were asked to fill out surveys every three months for one year about their recovery, recording physical and mental symptoms like anxiety, depression, fatigue, social participation, sleep disturbances, and pain. It took people far longer to regain their mental well-being than it did their physical health. 'To be totally honest, we didn't necessarily expect to see different recovery trajectories as big as the ones we are seeing,' says Wisk. 'While it makes sense that some people recover faster physically, and other people recover faster mentally, on average the difference that we saw was surprising.' Read More: You Could Have Long COVID and Not Even Know It Wisk and her team also asked people to self-report if they experienced Long COVID, meaning symptoms stemming from their infection that lingered for at least three months. Nearly half of people who reported both poor physical and mental qualify of life following their infections also believed they had Long COVID. While the assessment was subjective, it tracked with the data Wisk's team collected; among people who reported just poor physical health, poor mental health, or neither, there were fewer reports of Long COVID. The findings point to the need for a deeper understanding of how COVID-19 infections affect the body, physically and mentally, in the short and long term, says Wisk. 'We need to be thinking about a longer road to recovery for people, because even if someone recovers physically from their symptoms, it might not end there for them.' Appreciating these longer lasting effects could help people seek treatment for their symptoms, which may condense their recovery period. Wisk says that short courses of anxiety medications and sleep therapies, for example, could address some of the lingering effects of COVID-19. 'We know how to treat the initial infection and how to keep people alive, but we don't have a great treatment protocol for the after effects and the lingering symptoms,' says Wisk. 'These data should help to guide development of protocols in which we think of recovery over a potentially long time horizon before people get back to normal.' Contact us at letters@
Time Magazine
3 days ago
- Health
- Time Magazine
Still Not Feeling the Same After COVID-19? You're Not Alone
Most people have put the COVID-19 pandemic behind them. Infections, vaccinations, or a combination of both have bolstered people's immunity, and while new variants continue to pop up, getting sick does not induce the same panic it once did. But a new study shows that recovery from COVID-19 might not be as quick or straightforward as most of us now expect. The study, published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, found that on average, it takes many people up to three months to return to good physical health after a COVID-19 infection, and nine months to recover good mental well-being. For up to 20% of infected people who were analyzed in the study, this mental-health recovery took even longer: up to a year or more. Lauren Wisk, assistant professor in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, and her team looked at data from people who had COVID-19 at eight health facilities across the U.S. from Dec. 2020 to Aug. 2022. People were asked to fill out surveys every three months for one year about their recovery, recording physical and mental symptoms like anxiety, depression, fatigue, social participation, sleep disturbances, and pain. It took people far longer to regain their mental well-being than it did their physical health. 'To be totally honest, we didn't necessarily expect to see different recovery trajectories as big as the ones we are seeing,' says Wisk. 'While it makes sense that some people recover faster physically, and other people recover faster mentally, on average the difference that we saw was surprising.' Wisk and her team also asked people to self-report if they experienced Long COVID, meaning symptoms stemming from their infection that lingered for at least three months. Nearly half of people who reported both poor physical and mental qualify of life following their infections also believed they had Long COVID. While the assessment was subjective, it tracked with the data Wisk's team collected; among people who reported just poor physical health, poor mental health, or neither, there were fewer reports of Long COVID. The findings point to the need for a deeper understanding of how COVID-19 infections affect the body, physically and mentally, in the short and long term, says Wisk. 'We need to be thinking about a longer road to recovery for people, because even if someone recovers physically from their symptoms, it might not end there for them.' Appreciating these longer lasting effects could help people seek treatment for their symptoms, which may condense their recovery period. Wisk says that short courses of anxiety medications and sleep therapies, for example, could address some of the lingering effects of COVID-19. 'We know how to treat the initial infection and how to keep people alive, but we don't have a great treatment protocol for the after effects and the lingering symptoms,' says Wisk. 'These data should help to guide development of protocols in which we think of recovery over a potentially long time horizon before people get back to normal.'
The Independent
4 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
People with Covid-like symptoms took almost a year before feeling like themselves again, researchers say
Did you have Covid-like symptoms? It may take nine months or even longer to start feeling like yourself again. Researchers at UCLA found that 20 percent of patients with those symptoms continued experiencing suboptimal quality of life for nearly a year after infection. Whereas, physical well-being returned after only three months. "We have newly recognized the difference in recovery with respect to mental vs. physical well-being after a COVID infection," Lauren Wisk, an assistant professor of medicine at UCLA, said in a statement. "The findings showed that health care professionals need to pay more attention to their patients' mental well-being after a Covid infection and provide more resources that will help improve their mental health, in addition to their physical health,' she added. Wisk was one of the lead authors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded study that was published Tuesday in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases. The study compared people who sought treatment for Covid-like symptoms. Of those, 75 percent tested positive for the virus. The rest were negative. Of the 4,700 participants who experienced the symptoms between mid-December 2020 and late August 2022, the people who were positive for Covid were statistically likelier to return to optimal health-related quality-of-life than their Covid-negative counterparts in the year following the infection. The authors said the findings suggest that health authorities may have previously underestimated the long-term effects of non-Covid infections on a patient's well-being. To reach these conclusions, researchers analyzed responses from nearly 1,100 Covid-positive patients and 317 Covid-negative negative patients, assessing aspects including physical function, anxiety, depression, fatigue, social participation, sleep disturbance, pain interference and cognitive function. They found that approximately one in five of those who were part of the study remained in poor overall quality of life, with a high likelihood of self-reporting long Covid for up to a year after initial infection. 'In this large, geographically diverse study of individuals with 12 months of follow-up after Covid-19-like illness, a substantial proportion of participants continued to report poor [overall quality of life], whether or not the inciting acute symptoms were due to SARS-CoV-2 or another illness,' they said. Mental well-being recovered gradually, with significant improvements manifesting between six and nine months after infection, researchers found. The authors said further research was needed, noting that it remains unclear which conditions the symptomatic Covid-negative patients were suffering from and that Covid tests can yield both false-positive and false-negative results. The common cold, allergies, flu and Covid share many similar symptoms. "Future research should focus on how to improve the treatment models of care for patients who continue to experience Covid-19 symptoms and their impact on patients' quality of life, especially as one in five patients may continue to suffer over a year after their initial infection, which likely reflects long Covid," Wisk said.
San Francisco Chronicle
4 days ago
- Health
- San Francisco Chronicle
Mental recovery from COVID often takes longer than physical healing, study finds
A new study from UCLA researchers has found that while people with COVID-19 symptoms typically recovered physically within three months, many continued to struggle with mental well-being for up to nine months. Even a year later, one in five participants still reported poor overall health. Published Tuesday in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, the study tracked more than 1,400 individuals who experienced COVID-like symptoms between December 2020 and August 2022. About 75% of the participants tested positive for the virus. Over a year, researchers surveyed them every three months on key aspects of health-related quality of life, including sleep, fatigue, cognitive function and social engagement. The findings revealed a significant gap between physical and mental recovery. While most participants regained physical health within the first three months, improvements in mental health — particularly in areas such as anxiety, depression and fatigue — progressed more slowly, with the most noticeable gains occurring between six and nine months after illness. 'The findings showed that health care professionals need to pay more attention to their patients' mental well-being after a COVID-19 infection and provide more resources that will help improve their mental health, in addition to their physical health,' said Lauren Wisk, co-lead author and assistant professor of medicine at UCLA. Participants fell into four health categories: optimal health, poor mental health, poor physical health and poor overall well-being. Among those with the worst outcomes, 42% identified as having long COVID — highlighting a strong connection between long COVID and lasting health struggles. Surprisingly, those who tested positive for COVID were slightly more likely to return to full health than those who tested negative. Researchers suggest this could be due to undiagnosed conditions or false-negative test results. "Future research should focus on how to improve the treatment models of care for patients who continue to experience COVID-19 symptoms and their impact on patients' quality of life, especially as 1-in-5 patients may continue to suffer over a year after their initial infection, which likely reflects long COVID," Wisk said.
