IKBFU Scientists Developed a New Technique of Post-Covid Cognitive Recovery

Researchers at Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University have developed and tested a method of cognitive training, aimed at correction of disorders that may form in the period from one to three months after the acute phase of coronavirus. These include deterioration of concentration, pathological fatigability, increased anxiety, decreased short-term memory, and decreased quality of operational thinking. Within a year, scientists plan to create an electronic application — "Cognitive Impairment Risk Meter", which will allow patients to self-assess the level of cognitive functions and, if necessary, undergo an in-depth examination and medical rehabilitation.

Thanks to the testing the scientists managed to find out that cognitive deficits were combined with high rates of anxiety and asthenia. There was an actual involvement in the pathological process of the parieto-marieto-occipital and posterior-frontal parts of the brain. This was manifested by a complex of functional disturbances: decreased speed of thinking, impaired understanding of logical-grammatical constructions, deterioration of semantic memory, disorders of kinetic praxis.

Scientists developed rehabilitative neuropsychological training. It includes tasks restoring the functions of specialized brain structures and multimodal stimulation of the central nervous system (rhythmic transcranial magnetic stimulation of the brain and translingual stimulation).

Before the rehabilitation patients underwent neuropsychological diagnostics. This was used to determine individual areas of brain dysfunction, which became "targets" for the selection of a specialized complex of corrective tasks and stimulation. Then the patient underwent a 10- or 12-day course. For 25-30 minutes the patient performed sequential tasks: selection of associations and analogies, serial counting, solving rebuses and puzzles, searching for images, etc. Simultaneously the person received a stimulating influence on the affective area of the brain. After the procedure, an individual task for independent work was formed.