Covid raises brain complications, epilepsy risks in kids: Report

A latest study has shown that not only adults but children who suffered from Covid-19 are prone to risk of cognitive deficit, insomnia, ischaemic stroke, nerve or psychotic disorders and epilepsy or seizures  months later.

The post-Covid risk trajectories differed in children compared with adults, said the team of researchers at the University of Oxford.  Published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal, the findings are based on a  data of 185,748 children found that post-Covid risk trajectories differed in children compared with adults.

In the six months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, children were not at an increased risk of mood or anxiety disorders. However, they developed “an increased risk of cognitive deficit, insomnia, intracranial haemorrhage, ischaemic stroke, nerve, nerve root, and plexus disorders, psychotic disorders, and epilepsy or seizures”.

Unlike adults, cognitive deficit in children had a finite risk horizon (75 days) and a finite time to equal incidence (491 days). “Children have a more benign overall profile of psychiatric risk than do adults and older adults, but their sustained higher risk of some diagnoses is of concern,” said the study.

A sizeable proportion of older adults who received a neurological or psychiatric diagnosis, in either cohort, subsequently died, especially those diagnosed with dementia or epilepsy or seizures.

Just after the emergence of the delta variant, increased risks of ischaemic stroke, epilepsy or seizures, cognitive deficit, insomnia, and anxiety disorders were observed, compounded by an increased death rate.

“With Omicron, there was a lower death rate than just before emergence of the variant, but the risks of neurological and psychiatric outcomes remained similar,” revealed the study.

The observational study extracted data from the ‘TriNetX’ electronic health records network, an international network of de-identified data from health care records of approximately 89 million patients collected from hospital, primary care, and specialist providers from the US, Australia, the UK, Spain, Bulgaria, India, Malaysia, and Taiwan.