News: Recovered COVID-19 patients report lingering nervous system, cardiovascular, mental health problems

A new analysis from Cigna found that recovered COVID-19 patients are reporting lingering issues with nervous system, cardiovascular, and mental health disorders. These findings corroborate earlier reports suggesting COVID-19’s impact on patients’ health would be long-lasting.

The study evaluated roughly 475,000 of Cigna’s commercial customers from April to June 2020 and found 5.7% of recovered COVID-19 patients experienced lingering chronic respiratory conditions. More surprisingly, however, slightly more patients (5.8%) reported experiencing lingering nervous system conditions, including headaches, migraines, and seizures. Just over 5% of customers experienced lingering heart disease, such as coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, and heart failure. An additional 5% of post-COVID-19 patients experienced mental health disorders as a lingering side effect of the virus.

The study also supported prior research showing a large portion (35% according to Cigna) of the population suffered from a pre-existing condition. Twenty five percent of the study group had hypertension as a preexisting condition, 10% had diabetes, and 7% had metabolic syndrome. Those with preexisting conditions were likely to experience worsened preexisting condition or emerging condition than those without.

Editor’s note: The Cigna analysis can be found here. Additional ACDIS coverage of COVID-19 can be found here.