Cognitive assessment in asymptomatic COVID-19 subjects

• Published in: Virusdisease Vol. 32; no. 1; pp. 146 - 149
• Main Authors: Amalakanti, Sridhar, Arepalli, Kesava Venkata Raman, Jillella, Jyothi Priya
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi Springer India 01.03.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Activities of daily living; Age; Asymptomatic; Biochemistry; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Brain damage; Cell Biology; cognition; Cognitive ability; cognitive disorders; COVID-19; COVID-19 infection; elderly; Executive function; Hospitals; Hypoxia; Infections; Life Sciences; Microbiology; people; Protein Structure; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Short Communication; Canada; Montreal Quebec Canada; COVID-19 neuropsychiatric; COVID-19 psychiatric; COVID-19 cognition; COVID-19 brain; COVID-19 neurological
• ISSN: 2347-3584; 2347-3517
• DOI: 10.1007/s13337-021-00663-w

Neurological features of COVID-19 have been reported in addition to the respiratory manifestations, but cognitive dysfunction has been scarcely described. And cognitive assessment has not been studied in asymptomatic subjects. We compared the cognitive assessment scores between asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infected subjects with that of controls to detect mild cognitive impairment by the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test. Asymptomatic COVID-19 subjects secured lower scores in certain domains of the MoCA in comparison with the controls. The domains were visuoperception (2.4 ± 0.7 vs2.8 ± 0.7, p  = 0.032), naming (3.6 ± 0.5 vs3.9 ± 0.2, p  = 0.016) and fluency (0.9 ± 0.6 vs1.6 ± 0.7, p  =  < 0.001). Also, older aged COVID-19 positive subjects scored lower in the MoCA when compared to the younger people. Our study shows that even otherwise asymptomatic COVID-19 subjects have cognitive deficits in certain subdomains and suggests the need for a detailed psychometric assessment especially in the elderly population.