The long Covid manifests itself in various ways in the people who suffer from it. For this 28-year-old American, it’s the inability to recognize the faces of those close to her.
If scientists have more and more data about long Covid, the fact remains that the cases of certain patients remain complicated to explain.
A 28-year-old American knows this better than anyone, because among the many neurological symptoms she has developed, there is one that particularly intrigues doctors: a complete inability to recognize faces.
Long Covid and “face blindness”
It is in the scientific journal Science Direct that the case of this almost thirty-year-old has been detailed. It all started in early 2020 when the latter contracted the Covid. Two months after being infected, she still feels some symptoms.
But above all, she realizes that she has more and more difficulty recognizing the faces of those close to her. A disturbing experience that reaches its climax when, during a family dinner, she realizes that she is unable to distinguish her father from her uncle. She tells how she was shocked the day her father spoke to her and she recognized his voice, but was unable to recognize his face.
Other neurological disorders
In addition to this prosopagnosia, which designates the fact of not recognizing familiar faces, the patient also suffers from significant orientation disorders and must in particular note the location of her car on a GPS each time she parks it. to find her.
By studying the case of the young woman closely, there is no doubt for the researchers that these neurological disorders are the result of brain damage linked to the long Covid. Indeed, prosopagnosia and orientation disorders often go hand in hand since they concern areas close to the brain.
No treatment possible
While research on long Covid has found that its symptoms most often disappear within the first year, there are some exceptions.
In the case of this American patient, the situation is all the more worrying because prosopagnosia has no known effective treatment at the present time. The only solution for the patient to recognize his relatives is to rely on other characteristic features such as the voice, tattoos or characteristic marks on the face.