Long COVID Symptoms Not Always Caught With Elder Patients

A couple of weeks ago, my colleague and friend Mark Bauer sent me this article from the Washington Post, Long covid symptoms are often overlooked in seniors. According to the article, there are "millions of older adults who have grappled with long covid — a population that has received little attention even though research suggests seniors are more likely to develop the poorly understood condition than younger or middle-aged adults."

Long covid refers to ongoing or new health problems that occur at least four weeks after a covid infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Much about the condition is baffling: There is no diagnostic test to confirm it, no standard definition of the ailment and no way to predict who will be affected. Common symptoms, which can last months or years, include fatigue, shortness of breath, an elevated heart rate, muscle and joint pain, sleep disruptions, and problems with attention, concentration, language and memory — a set of difficulties known as brain fog.

The article quotes from two recent studies about long COVID and elders and notes some reasons why it can be more difficult to diagnosis it among elders.  According to one expert in geriatric medicine, "[t]he challenge is that nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue, weakness, pain, confusion and increased frailty are things we often see in seriously ill older adults. Or people may think, ‘That’s just part of aging,’ ”   The correlation between COVID and dementia development is also discussed in the article, along with the potential development of more severe health problems.

This is a complex disease that all of us should take seriously.