Covid-19 can cost you 10 IQ points, slow down cognitive functions and result in 20 years of ageing

Our cognitive functions decline with age and our IQ points drop - while this is a truth we accept as the law of nature, a severe Covid-19 infection can cause similar impairments and make your IQ drop by 10 points, finds a new study. This kind of cognitive impairment is comparable with people who experience aging in between the ages of 50 to 70.

The study published in the journal of eClinicalMedicine suggests that the effects of a severe Covid-19 infection can be seen for up to six months, and in most cases the recovery is mostly gradual.

The study conducted by scientists from the University of Cambridge and the Imperial College, London found that the effects of Covid on patients’ cognitive skills linger for at least six months after the infection and makes them slower in response, and less accurate. These impairments were more pronounced in people who had been on mechanical ventilation during the infection.

Professor David Menon from the Division of Anaesthesia at Cambridge said that cognitive impairment such as neurological disorders, dementia and routine ageing, basically the ‘cognitive fingerprint of Covid-19’ is very distinct in such people. These individuals scored really low on analogical reasoning tests, and demonstrated less information processing speed.

By comparing the individuals with 66,008 people of the general public, the scientists saw that the kind of cognitive impairment they suffered is equal to the kind of cognitive loss one would suffer over a 20 years period, especially between the age of 50 to 70 years.

The researchers followed some patients for up to ten months after their acute infection, and observed slow improvement and they propounded that in some of them full recovery may never happen.