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Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at Western who has previously studied signs of awareness in comatose (or otherwise unresponsive) patients, is now launching a study of the impacts of COVID-19 on the brain, together with a heart and stroke neurologist from Sunnybrook Hospital, Dr. Rick Swartz:
https://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com/studies/covid-brain-study
They believe that a year from now, we will see some cases of profound cognitive impairment, whether from the virus itself or the secondary effects on the respiratory system and the impeding of oxygen flow to the brain.
For older people already more susceptible to the ravages of the virus and already more prone to developing dementia, that's probably the last thing we want to hear. On the other hand, the bad news may prod politicians and policy experts to finally reform long term and home care and develop a coherent dementia strategy. And of course, the study may yield some good news too, in terms of what we can do to prevent or slow our decline, or even reverse it.
I recently read the book Still Alice, by Lisa Genova. It's a novel, but the author is herself a neuroscientist who also happens to be a good storyteller. Alice is a highly regarded professor of psycholinguistics at Harvard, with a husband who is also an academic and three grown children. Around the time of her 50th birthday, Alice is giving a presentation at a big international conference when she forgets the right word for something at a pivotal point and has to hastily come up with a substitute. No one seems to notice and she doesn't really think anything of it until she returns home and finds that even in familiar situations and surroundings, she is suddenly getting memory lapses. After a series of tests, she is diagnosed with a hereditary form of early-onset dementia. Of her three children, two opt to get tested - one has the bad gene and one doesn't - while the third decides not to get tested at all.
What makes the book so powerful is that it is all told from Alice's perspective so we can somewhat share her sense of disorientation yet still know what's going on. Alice makes certain observations that she can't quite see the significance of herself, but the reader can.
As far as the COVID-19 brain study goes, I think the results will be very interesting. I'm encouraged too by the fact that the medical specialists are reaching beyond the physical manifestations of the disease itself and the quest for a vaccine, and looking at the longer term problems of cognitive outcomes and the wider implications for societies world-wide.
https://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com/studies/covid-brain-study
They believe that a year from now, we will see some cases of profound cognitive impairment, whether from the virus itself or the secondary effects on the respiratory system and the impeding of oxygen flow to the brain.
For older people already more susceptible to the ravages of the virus and already more prone to developing dementia, that's probably the last thing we want to hear. On the other hand, the bad news may prod politicians and policy experts to finally reform long term and home care and develop a coherent dementia strategy. And of course, the study may yield some good news too, in terms of what we can do to prevent or slow our decline, or even reverse it.
I recently read the book Still Alice, by Lisa Genova. It's a novel, but the author is herself a neuroscientist who also happens to be a good storyteller. Alice is a highly regarded professor of psycholinguistics at Harvard, with a husband who is also an academic and three grown children. Around the time of her 50th birthday, Alice is giving a presentation at a big international conference when she forgets the right word for something at a pivotal point and has to hastily come up with a substitute. No one seems to notice and she doesn't really think anything of it until she returns home and finds that even in familiar situations and surroundings, she is suddenly getting memory lapses. After a series of tests, she is diagnosed with a hereditary form of early-onset dementia. Of her three children, two opt to get tested - one has the bad gene and one doesn't - while the third decides not to get tested at all.
What makes the book so powerful is that it is all told from Alice's perspective so we can somewhat share her sense of disorientation yet still know what's going on. Alice makes certain observations that she can't quite see the significance of herself, but the reader can.
As far as the COVID-19 brain study goes, I think the results will be very interesting. I'm encouraged too by the fact that the medical specialists are reaching beyond the physical manifestations of the disease itself and the quest for a vaccine, and looking at the longer term problems of cognitive outcomes and the wider implications for societies world-wide.
