COVID-19 Neurology

May 25, 2020 by Sam Bazzi This week, I would like to focus on a topic that our lab has been interested in understanding for a long time, which is the health outcomes of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with COVID-19. There have been primarily two published papers that discuss this topic and I will summarize…

May 18, 2020 by Sam Bazzi Encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) has now been associated with COVID-19 in several published case studies from around the world. This week’s blog post will focus on several of these encephalitis case studies. Case Presentation: A male patient from Wuhan (age not provided in the article) presented with typical…

May 11, 2020 by Sam Bazzi This week I would like to focus on Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) and the published reports on the association between GBS and COVID-19. GBS is a rare neurological autoimmune disorder that affects the peripheral immune system, characterized by sensory deficits, and in some cases leading to acute paralysis and neuromuscular…

May 4, 2020 by Sam Bazzi During the past week, while I was surveying the literature for any new neurological reports in COVID-19, I found a paper that casted doubt on the connections between neurological disease and COVID-19, which led me down a rabbit hole of dissenting papers. A few weeks ago, I wrote a…

April 27, 2020 by Sam Bazzi As people grow restless during self-isolation as a result of stay-at-home orders (especially as shown by the growing amount of protests across the USA), I think it is important to look at psychological responses to this crisis around the world. It may seem obvious that people respond negatively to…

April 20, 2020 by Sam Bazzi In this week’s neurology blog, I would like to highlight a review published in Neurology Clinical Practice, in which Dr. Carlos A. Pérez from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, outlines some of the newly appreciated neurologic complications of COVID-19.  Currently, it is thought that neurological…

April 13, 2020 by Sam Bazzi In a review published by Neurology this week, recommendations were made on how to adjust disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) for people with MS who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 (Brownlee, et al., 2020). In summary, MS patients with minor COVID-19 symptoms should not alter their therapy, as the risk of MS…

April 5, 2020 by Sam Bazzi Summary: Currently, there is evidence to suggest that some patients suffering from COVID-19 experience a variety of neurological symptoms, including stroke, delirium, anosmia, epileptic seizures, vomiting, dizziness, and headache. It is unclear how or why these symptoms arise, but some clues exist based on previous coronavirus outbreaks (see Potential…