Prescription Health: COVID, it's not just physical
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New research on COVID shows the virus has a link to mental health related issues.
When you think of the effects of COVID-19 or long COVID, you think of coughing, but what about your mental health?
"So it's really the neurological manifestations that we've been able to characterize following SARS-COV-2 infection that fall under the umbrella of long COVID are much wider in scope than just plain fact that most people talk about," Washington University School of Medicine Clinical Epidemiologist Ziyad Al-Aly said.
Studies found that people who had COVID are much more likely to have incidents of depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, opioid use disorders and other substance abuse disorders.
But do vaccines help?
"Vaccine reduces the risk, but does not eliminate the risk of these manifestations," Al-Aly said.
Unvaccinated people who were hospitalized due to COVID were over 15 times more likely to have an incident of depression, compared to over 12 times for vaccinated hospitalized people.
"You can think of it as the one when the tsunami hits and the water recedes, or when that earthquake stops or the earth stops shaking. You're going to be left with a damage," Al-Aly said.
It is each person's choice, but they need to be aware of the risks when they make that choice.
Al-Aly has another new study on the effect of long COVID on every organ system years later.
He found the risk of death was no longer present in non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients three years after infection, but the risk of death remained elevated after three years for those who were hospitalized.