COVID-19’s impact will linger

from New Horizons February 2021

Look out for vaccine scammers

You’re invited to visit the Intercultural Senior Center (ISC), 5545 Center St., for the following: • Morning exercise classes. Mondays: Tai Chi. Wednesdays: Zumba. Fridays: Tai Chi/weights. Classes are held from 9 to 10. Bring water. Masks, which are available upon request, are required. The ISC follows CDC and state guidelines for physical distancing, indoor health and safety protocols.

These classes are open to 14 older adults only.

During bad weather, call to confirm if the class is available that day.

The ISC is offering online learning videos which can be accessed from the safety and comfort of your home at interculturalseniorcenter.org and on Facebook at ISC Class Connect.

A monthly food pantry is available at the ISC for persons age 50 or older.

The ISC is looking for home delivered meals volunteers on Wednesdays and Fridays @ 10:30 a.m. More information is available at interculturalseniorcenter.org.

The ISC is a site for ENOA’s Grab-n-Go meals Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Reserve your meal before 10 a.m. the day prior. Recipients must be age 60 or older. A contribution is suggested.

The ISC’s SAVE bus can bring case management services to your doorstep.

For more information, please call 402-444-6529.

Moments like these are precious. Don’t let them fade away.

A cure is in sight 800-610-4558 • Fightblindness.org

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in people age 55+. Early detection is the key to saving your sight.

Protect your vision from fading away. Call the Foundation Fighting Blindness for a free information packet about preventing and managing AMD. with the coronavirus. When reports began emerging that people

It appears increasingly likely that with COVID-19 were losing their sense of COVID-19 will have a long-lasting taste and smell, neuroscientists knew that impact on the brain health and cogni- signified a big concern because it suggested tive abilities of many people who have the virus was somehow affecting neurologiotherwise recovered from the disease’s cal function directly despite the protective acute symptoms. Surprisingly, the effects blood-brain barrier. are significant even in younger patients Recent data suggests a COVID-19 inwhere the cognitive deficits can be similar fection weakens the blood-brain barrier to symptoms associated with age-related perhaps as a side-effect of the immune cognitive decline. system’s efforts to fight the infection and

A recent study from researchers at the perhaps by direct action of the virus itself. Imperial College London, Cambridge In either case, it’s clear individuals with University, King’s College London, and the severe COVID-19 can develop a number of University of Chicago indicated there may neurological complications including blood be chronic cognitive consequences from clotting, stroke, encephalopathies, microCOVID-19 which scale with the severity bleeds, and inflammatory syndrome. of symptoms from the disease, and which That’s in addition to the well-known risks are evident even in those who were never to cognitive function arising from spending hospitalized. time in an intensive care unit.

The researchers reported a reduction in This paints a worrisome picture for neuoverall cognitive ability for those who were roscientists studying COVID and certainly hospitalized and on ventilators to roughly for people who have suffered a COVID-19 equivalent to the average loss in cognitive infection and their loved ones. This study abilities over a 10-year period as people provides more evidence for an increasingly age. common viewpoint that COVID “long-

Previous studies of people hospitalized haulers” can have neurological and cogniwith other respiratory diseases indicate tive symptoms that far outlast the period of cognitive deficits persisting for at least five time when they’re actively suffering from a years after hospitalization, so the research- COVID infection. ers note these results aren’t surprising. In this way, the coronavirus may be like

What struck the researchers as unex- certain other conditions such as cancer, pected is there was also a deficit, though HIV infection, or concussion where some not as large, among people not put on a patients are afflicted by cognitive symptoms ventilator and among people never hospi- that are long-lasting and aren’t addressed by talized. Among people hospitalized but not the health care system. put on a ventilator, the deficits reported by Even people who are uninfected and folthe researchers were 20% smaller. Among lowing health guidelines (staying at home, those who remained home the deficits were maintaining social distance) face cogni80% smaller. tive issues. Our brains are healthiest when

As a neuroscientist not involved with stimulated. If you are socializing less and this study, I found these results of great staying at home, it’s likely you encounter interest. Normally, infectious diseases less cognitive stimulation each day than shouldn’t have significant effects on the you did before the pandemic. If your brain brain, because the brain has a defensive doesn’t need to be as sharp, its processing system – the blood-brain barrier – com- slows and gets fuzzier over time which can posed of specialized cells that form a wall lead to cognitive issues. that should keep infectious agents like virus With new vaccines and treatments at the and bacteria out of the brain. early stages of distribution, the next ques-

While any illness that can cause a fever tion is what, if anything, we can do to admay lead to short-term cognitive issues, dress these cognitive issues. typically those problems are transient and Studies of similar cognitive deficits – go away when the fever resolves itself. albeit from different causes – have shown

As the COVID-19 crisis emerged in these types of deficits can be reversed 2020, neuroscientists kept a careful eye across a wide variety of patient populations on reports there might be more significant including older adults, persons with mild brain health issues associated with the cognitive impairment, chemobrain, mild coronavirus. At first, many assumed the traumatic brain injury, and heart failure. reports of attention, memory problems, and COVID is an area in which the same sorts fogginess were like what would be reported of tools should now be put to the test. HorizonAD-2010:HorizonAD-08 2/4/10 8:00 AM Page 1 with the ordinary flu. It soon became clear (Dr. Mahncke is a neuroscientist in San these symptoms were distinct and worse Francisco.)