After the coronavirus, people can develop a whole range of mental disorders, and those who have been ill are faced with “covid fog”, when it is difficult for a person to concentrate, mental work is not given, and habitual actions are “de-automated”. In addition, against the backdrop of the pandemic, there was an increase in complaints with anxiety-depressive disorders, the chief freelance psychiatrist of the Moscow Department of Health and the chief physician of Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 named after V.I. N. A. Alekseeva (formerly named after Kashchenko) Georgy Kostyuk.
According to the psychiatrist, the increase in the number of mental disorders due to stress did not lead to a surge in referrals to psychiatrists. He listed the disorders that can appear after the illness, depending on the severity of its course: confusion, agitation, hallucinations, the performance of absolutely unmotivated actions.
Also, COVID-19 survivors notice attacks of rapid heartbeat, which, against the background of general anxiety, becomes a trigger for the formation of panic attacks, which are characterized by feelings of shortness of breath, palpitations, fear and the appearance of cold sweat. There are more such people, Kostyuk notes.
At the start of the pandemic, sales of antidepressants skyrocketed across the country, the psychiatrist continues.
“And then lockdown, distant, illnesses of loved ones, waiting for a better vaccine. All this generated anxious expectations, hopes that this wave would be the last and prosperity would come, but another wave was coming. This formed at first anxiety states, and then they began to gradually turn into anxiety-depressive ones, ”said Kostyuk, adding that most of the complaints with anxiety-depressive disorders were recorded from spring to late summer 2021.
Experts are also studying the connection between coronavirus and the acceleration of neurodegenerative processes. Observations showed that elderly people over 70 years old with an early stage of dementia deteriorated sharply – they became confused and experienced hallucinatory experiences, Kostyuk noted.
Against the background of the fourth wave of coronavirus, Russians began to visit doctors more often with symptoms of anxiety and panic disorders, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, representatives of large clinics previously told Vedomosti. As a rule, people who have not previously suffered from panic attacks or disorders come for help, said Yulia Chaplygina, head of the medical and psychological service of the Medsi Clinical Hospital No. 1. According to the doctor, she has never had as many patients with panic attacks as she does now. “My colleagues, analysts from companies engaged in the selection of psychologists, see a similar picture: in the fall of 2021, requests on this issue have grown 2–3 times compared to the fall of 2020,” Chaplygina says.
According to the World Health Organization, up to 20% of those who have had coronavirus suffer from postcoid syndrome. Symptoms include cognitive dysfunction, fatigue, shortness of breath, as well as sleep disturbances, anxiety and depression.
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