Probably a bit early to ask this…
Has anyone heard of any long-term aftereffects for people who were seriously ill but recovered? I’m wondering if there is any permanent damage done to their bodies, especially lungs since that where it seems to hit hardest. Or is recovery full and complete, like from the flu?
Just curious.
There are no long term survivors yet. Survivors? Yes. Long term? I don’t consider 4-5 months long term.
True enough - though I’ve got the same question.
They probably at least have some theories as to what the effects might be.
My WAG: they could look at survivors of SARS, MERS, or even ARDS caused by things other than those two viruses (virii?) and come up with ideas.
In the short term, someone we know slightly is recovering from COVID pneumonia and has trouble walking around the block; we read online articles about people who can’t walk 10 feet. This is all while they are just barely “over” the virus; no clue how they feel even 2 weeks out.
Replying to myself: googling “long term effects sars survivors” turns up a study of survivors in the Hong Kong area and another in the Toronto area - both just a few years after the outbreak (I think they were both in the 2009/2010 timeframe).
Both studies reported overall reduced quality of life and a significant increase in the prevalence of psychiatric issues. I couldn’t find
anything that discussed whether these were limited to patients who had been intubated, or just anyone who’d been formally diagnosed.
This one, which appears to include a relatively small number of patients but over a relatively long time, seems to say that there are some long term reductions in lung capacity, with most improvement happening in the first year or two.
Washington Post: “The dark side of ventilators: Those hooked up for long periods face difficult recoveries”*. (Note: although The Washington Post webside is generally paywalled this article is free to all.)
For those who manage to defeat the virus and come off ventilators, the really hard part begins. Many will suffer long-term physical, mental and emotional issues, according to a staggering body of medical and scientific studies. Even a year after leaving the intensive care unit, many people experience post-traumatic stress disorder, Alzheimer’s-like cognitive deficits, depression, lost jobs and problems with daily activities such as bathing and eating.
I have never been on a ventilator but I have known people who have, and they describe the experience as “horrific” and “terrifying”, in no small part because while they are sedated during intubation they are often periodically made conscious to check on their mental status and to check if they are ready to be exturbated, which means they experience being literally forced to breathe while feeling suffocated by a big tube down their throat. There are, of course, the residual physical damage from breakdown of alveoli in the lung and pulmonary fibrosis. You can also suffer this kind of damage from acute atypical pneumonia but it is generally limited to one or two lobes of the lung. COVID-19 seems to attack the entire structure of both lungs which makes it particularly insidious, and may leave people who have severe presentation with a permanent reduction in lung capacity and perfusion efficiency.
Hopefully medical scientists will develop interventions that effectively treat patients presenting the beginnings of severe illness such that they do not have to be intubated because the odds of surviving ventilation are not good, and because of the after-effects described above. This is yet another reason to maintain the isolation measures in place to protect vulnerable people (which could be anyone of adult age) instead of trying to rush back into opening the economy back up just after we pass the peak of infections and deaths, lest we have a generation of COVID-19 survivors they way the 1940s and 1950s had generations of polio survivors with lifelong paralysis and pain.
Stranger
There are some articles out there suggesting that less-invasive methods may be beneficial, including high-flow nasal cannulas and CPAP / BiPAP versus full-on intubation. That would reduce the instances of post-ventilation trauma (physical and mental). The studies I looked at the other day did mention psychiatric problems as being fairly common.
I’m more interested in the physical damage done by the disease itself - and by the ventilator itself (high pressure oxygen, seems like that itself might do some damage to the alveoli, but i could be wrong).
I have heard mention of possible decreased lung capacity long term, but it’s probably too early to tell.
