Physical, mental, cognitive symptoms. Up to a year after the intensive care nightmare. Happens to 75% of Covid survivors who have been in these wards for the sick in very serious conditions. The figure emerges from a study published in the journal ‘Jama’, in which the long-term health problems of a group of patients treated in the intensive care units in the Netherlands were examined. The Monitor-Ic plan, this is the name of the large-scale study led by Radboud University Medical Center, is to monitor the health status of Covid patients ‘survivor’ up to 5 years after admission to intensive care.
The work is based on the experience of 246 former Covid patients (176 men and 70 women) who needed intensive care. Average age: 61 years, all hospitalized during the first pandemic wave, between March and July 2020. Result: the questionnaires show that three quarters of patients experienced symptoms one year after intensive care. Mainly physical problems, and in fact half of them experience feelings of fatigue. Other physical difficulties mentioned are: decreased functions, pain, muscle weakness, shortness of breath. Some mental symptoms are also common: one in five ICU survivors experience anxiety or post-traumatic stress; one in 6 have cognitive problems such as memory or attention difficulties.
All conditions that “negatively affect the daily life of former patients”, explain the experts. Over half report having problems at work due to these health situations. Survivors needed to reduce working hours; some are still on sick leave or have even given up their profession. It is a cross-section that “shows the incredible impact that an intensive care hospitalization has on the lives of former Covid patients – concludes the principal researcher of the study, Marieke Zegers (Radboud University Medical Center) – Even after a year, half of these people she is tired or suffers from lack of energy to resume her daily life before the virus.