Long COVID and Cognitive Impairment: 2022 survey results from 29 states with relevance to Alzheimer’s Disease

Author(s): Mary L. Adams, MS, MPH, Joseph Grandpre, PhD, MPH

Background:

Evidence is accumulating of similarities between COVID and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and dementia.

Objective:

To compare long COVID (symptoms ≥3 months) and cognitive impairment (CI) which can be an early step toward AD.

Methods:

Using 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance data from 169,894 adults in 29 states, respondents with CI and long COVID were compared using Stata. Unadjusted and adjusted analysis for each outcome included age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, 7 dementia risk factors (obesity, diabetes, smoking, physical inactivity, depression, excessive drinking, and difficulty hearing) or 5 COVID risks (obesity, diabetes, CVD, COPD, and asthma), individually and as composite measures, COVID vaccine doses received, plus the alternate outcome.

Results:

Prevalence of long COVID was 7.4% and CI was 13.4% with both rates higher among women, ages 18-64 years, Hispanics, American Indians, those with more risk factors in either group, plus respondents reporting the other outcome. Rates were 35% (CI) or 38% (long COVID) lower among respondents reporting ≥3 vaccine doses vs <3, in both cases reducing rates to those for adults with ≤1 risk factor and suggesting vaccination could be as effective an intervention as risk factor reduction for both outcomes. Logistic regression confirmed most results except the magnitude of reduction of CI rates for ≥3 vaccines was less than expected.

Conclusions:

Results confirm similarities between COVID and CI, most notably for risk factors and reaction to vaccines, suggesting the possibility that COVID vaccines might be able to slow development of AD from an early step in the progression.