NEUROLOGICAL COMPLICATIONS OF COVID-19

Abstract

After the first cases of the new disease COVID-19 (caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus) were registered in Wuhan, China in December 2019, its spread rapidly became a pandemic and within a few months it covered almost 200 countries [6]. The global COVID-19 pandemic has infected more than 79 million people around the world and claimed more than 1.7 million lives as of December 24, 2020 (according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University). Thus, the mortality rate is 2.2%, which significantly exceeds the mortality rate for influenza. It is believed that the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue in the next few months, after which the pandemic will decline. Although the predominant manifestations of COVID-19 are respiratory symptoms, more and more attention is paid to neurological complications. Some neurological complications are potentially life-threatening and can lead to death. The most common neurological complications of acute phase of COVID-19 are impairments of olfaction and taste, which are observed in 33-88% of patients [3]. These symptoms are important for differential diagnosis with influenza and ARVI viruses. Headaches, dizziness, fatigue, and myalgia according to different studies can be observed in 6.5-16.8% of patients. Other neurological complications of COVID-19 often develop in severe and very severe disease (although there are exceptions). Apparently, such neurological complications as ischemic stroke, transient ischemic attack, encephalopathy, delirium can be observed in approximately 0.5-3% of patients. Even less common are hemorrhagic stroke, venous sinus thrombosis, meningitis, encephalitis, encephalomyelitis, cerebral vasculitis, III, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX cranial nerves lesions, Guillain-Barre syndrome, Miller-Fisher syndrome, polyneuropathy, acute dysautonomia, myopathy, myoclonus, epileptic seizures and status epilepticus [2, 4-8]. Awareness of the neurological complications of COVID-19 can influence treatment strategies and simultaneously improve the prognosis for critically ill patients [5]. Keywords: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, coronavirus, neurological complications