How Long Haul COVID Takes a Toll on Your Mental Health

How Long Haul COVID Takes a Toll on Your Mental Health

• By Staff Writer

How Long Haul COVID Takes a Toll on Your Mental Health

Coronavirus, originally treated as an acute respiratory illness, is a virus with symptoms that can linger in patients—with some still encountering challenges over a year after their symptoms emerged. Long Covid and post-Covid conditions refer to health problems that patients experience more than four weeks after infection. The stress of these lingering symptoms can take a real toll on mental health, which shouldn't be overlooked.

Persistent physical symptoms for most long stretch Covid patients include difficulty breathing, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and fever. Some experience multi-organ impacts which impact the heart, lungs, kidneys, skin, and brain. Additionally, autoimmune conditions and new allergies can emerge.1 Some patients experience strokes, changes in motor function, perception, and seizures.

Patients often encounter multiple symptoms, and it can be difficult to adjust or completely recover. Because information is still emerging about long stretch experiences, patients have little understanding of long-term prognoses and might lack access to appropriate treatments or answers about their health.

Neurological Symptoms Intersect with Mental Health

81% of long-haulers experience brain fog—a non-medical description for feeling mentally sluggish, hazy, or spaced out. Extra neurological symptoms include dizziness, fatigue, numbness, tingling, pain, change in the ability to taste and smell, vision changes, tinnitus, and cognitive impairment.1 Insomnia, depression, and anxiety—considered both mental health concerns and neurological symptoms—are also reported.

Dr. Philip Fizur, Clinical Health Psychologist at Cooper Hospital, says that weariness, pain, and other neurological symptoms can lead to and perpetuate depression. But he underlines that it's hard to tell in individual patients if mental health symptoms emerge due to neurological reasons or if it's because dealing with Covid symptoms is a stressor. Each person's symptoms could have various causes.

No matter the cause, it's important to treat the symptoms. He says that mental health professionals work closely with medical teams to find solutions, and various interventions—including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy—can improve poor sleep, depression, and other mental health concerns so medical teams explore other possible causes and can more clearly target the symptoms with neurological origins.