New research has suggested that COVID-19 could increase the risk of a neurological disorder called Parkinson’s disease.
Researchers reported at least three cases of relatively young patients who had COVID-19 and developed Parkinson’s or other neurological deficits within a few weeks of contracting the virus. Another similar case has not yet been published.
The cases were mentioned in an article titled – “Is COVID-19 a Perfect Storm for Parkinson’s Disease?” The article was published online on October 21 in Trends in Neurosciences.
Lead author of the article Dr. Patrick Brundin told Medscape Medical News, “If this link is real, we might be in for an epidemic of Parkinson’s disease in the future.”
Dr. Brundin is the director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Science at Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Coauthors of the article include Dr. Avindra Nath of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and Dr. David Beckham of the University of Colorado Anschutz, Aurora, Colorado.
The three patients were aged 35, 45, and 58 years. All of them had a severe respiratory infection, requiring hospitalization. Two of three patients improved gradually after receiving conventional dopaminergic medication, while the third patient recovered spontaneously.
The brain imaging of all the three patients revealed the reduced function of the dopamine system, which is seen in Parkinson’s disease.
No patients had a family history of Parkinson’s disease and neither of them had any history of prodromal Parkinson’s.
Dr. Brundin said, “These cases of acute Parkinson’s in patients with COVID-19 are truly remarkable. They occurred in relatively young people ― much younger than the average age of developing Parkinson’s ― and none had a family history of early signs of Parkinson’s prodrome. That is quite a stunning observation.”
“Parkinson’s is normally a very slowly developing disease, but in these cases, something happened quickly,” he added.
Dr. Brundin believes that COVID-19 infection may make patients susceptible to Parkinson’s disease either sooner or later.
“It may be that a younger patient will recover from the infection but be left with neurological symptoms, such as brain fog and depression ― we know that this can happen in long-COVID,” he said. “This is consistent with damage to the brain, and maybe Parkinson’s disease will develop later.”
