As older adults with COVID-19 battle “brain fog,” physical weakness and emotional turmoil, family members should insist on securing rehabilitation services — physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, cognitive rehabilitation — upon hospital discharge and a return to home, according to E. Wesley Ely, M.D., MPH, co-director of the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“Recovery will be on the order of months and years, not days or weeks,” he told Kaiser Health News.
Moreover, the aftereffects of COVID-related delirium can complicate recovery. “What we’re seeing with COVID-19 and older adults are rates of delirium in the 70% to 80% range,” said Dr. Babar Khan, associate director of Indiana University’s Center for Aging Research at the Regenstrief Institute.
