Later‐life cognitive and behavioral changes in older adults with Long COVID
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Individuals diagnosed with COVID‐19 may continue to experience symptoms long after infection. Research suggests that the COVID‐19 virus may be linked to brain pathology and dementia risk, possibly due to neurological complications and long‐term cognitive effects. Mild Behavioral Impairment (MBI) is an early indicator of dementia risk characterized by later life onset of persistent changes in behavior or personality. To better understand the consequences of COVID‐19 on older adults, we investigated whether older adults who experienced Long COVID reported more severe later‐life emergent cognitive and behavioral symptoms linked to elevated dementia risk. Method Participants were from the Canadian Platform for Research Online to Investigate Health, Quality of Life, Cognition, Behavior, Function, and Caregiving in Aging (CAN‐PROTECT), who self‐reported testing positive for COVID‐19 (n = 684), stratified by whether they reported having Long COVID. The severity of subjective cognitive symptoms was measured with the Everyday Cognition scale (ECog‐II). The severity of MBI symptoms was measured with the MBI Checklist (MBI‐C). We modelled associations between Long COVID (exposure) and ECog‐II or MBI‐C total scores using negative binomial regression models (zero‐inflated, if appropriate), adjusting for age, sex, education, ethnocultural origin, marital status, employment status, and number of vaccine doses administered. Result Participants (81.7% female, mean age 63.7±7.3 years) who experienced Long COVID (n = 41) reported an ECog‐II total score 1.73 times higher (95% CI: 1.32‐2.32, p ≤0.001), and an MBI‐C total score 2.18 times higher (95% CI: 1.46‐3.22, p≤0.001) than those without Long COVID. Effect sizes differed for each of the ECog‐II and MBI‐C domains (Table 2). The greatest magnitude of effect was seen in the executive function domain for ECog‐II with a 2.32 times greater score (95% CI: 1.57‐3.60, p≤0.001), and psychotic symptoms domain for MBI with a 3.49 times higher score (95% CI: 1.57‐7.92, p = 0.002), compared to those without Long COVID Conclusion Among older adults who tested positive for COVID‐19, those who experienced Long COVID symptoms reported more severe cognitive and behavioral symptoms that indicate elevated risk for dementia. Future studies should investigate symptoms over time and mechanisms linking Long COVID with potential prodromal cognitive and behavioral symptoms for dementia.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".