/ George, stock.adobe.com
MANCHESTER – Many people hospitalized with COVID-19 are still suffering from sleep problems months later. A prospective observational study in Lancet Respiratory Medicine (2023; DOI: 10.1016/S2213-2600(23)001) associates these sleep disturbances with shortness of breath in patients, although the anxiety and muscle weakness in many prolonged COVID patients could also be responsible for persistent shortness of breath.
The results were also presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Copenhagen. the study Fusp covid Accompanying a group of patients who were discharged from hospital from March 2020 to October 2021 after severe COVID-19 disease.
The scans, done once after two to seven months and a second time after 10 to 14 months, show that many patients still have symptoms. Long-known symptoms of COVID include sleep disturbances, which a team led by John Blakeley of University of Manchester Examine it closely.
638 participants completed a questionnaire (“Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index”) and indicated their sleep quality on a numeric scale from 0 to 10. Another group of 729 patients wore writing on their wrists for 14 days. It has also been used to record movements at night.
62% of the study participants suffered from sleep disorders. Compared to the control group in the pre-pandemic period, the new coronavirus patients slept an average of 65 minutes longer, but their sleep was more irregular and the sleep efficiency was lower.
All three of these sleep characteristics have been associated with increased shortness of breath, another known consequence of severe illness from COVID-19. A completely reasonable explanation is that shortness of breath in patients is to blame for sleep disturbances. It can reduce oxygen uptake during sleep, which explains the frequent nocturnal awakenings.
However, Blaikley’s team is convinced that causation runs the other way. From her point of view, sleep disorders are responsible for the fact that long Covid patients suffer from shortness of breath during the day. Additional factors were anxiety and muscle weakness, which were also associated with increased shortness of breath in the study.
Researchers cannot prove causation. For this purpose, clinical studies should be conducted, which would examine the effect of sleep therapy (whether medical or psychological) on dyspnea in patients. © rme/aerzteblatt.de