Electrophysiological assessment of patients recovered from COVID-19 infection

Abstract

Background: Neurological manifestation associated with Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) is commonly reported. However, these patients were not routinely referred for electrophysiological testing. Many studies reported abnormalities in nerve conduction studies (NCS) in patients who recovered from COVID-19 infection. Aim: we aimed to investigate the effect of COVID-19 infection on patients who performed NCS prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and after recovering from COVID-19 illness. Methods: A cohort retrospective study was conducted, which included males and females (average age 50.6 years old) participants who performed NCS before the pandemic and were not hospitalized during their COVID-19 illness. We assessed sensory and motor NCS for the ulnar, median, peroneal, tibial, and sural nerves. A total of 14 ulnar and median nerves and six tibial, peroneal, and sural nerves were assessed. Results: All tested parameters were normal in most of our participants. However, there was a significant increase in amplitude and decrease in conduction velocity (CV) in sensory NCS in median nerves ( p <0.005) and ulnar nerves ( p <0.05). There is an increase in amplitudes and a decrease in the CV in the lower limbs' sensory and motor NCS and the motor ulnar and median nerves, but this did not reach a significance level. Conclusion: This is the first study to assess the effect of COVID-19 on the same nerves (before and after COVID-19 infection). Although all NCS parameters were normal, the paired analysis showed that the median and ulnar sensory nerves are the most affected by COVID-19. Standardized electrodiagnostic guidelines are recommended to be established for recovered COVID-19 patients for early diagnosis of neural functions to ensure optimal recovery. This research was not funded. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.