Having a stroke after COVID-19 is associated with poorer long-term outcomes.

SARS-CoV-2 infected inpatients who had a stroke were collected and retrospectively studied for presence of neurological PASC symptoms, 4 weeks to up to 1 year after their first inpatient admission with SARS-CoV-2 infection. All demographic, nominal and inpatient data including length of stay, discharge, medications, and lab data were compared.

57 patients with stroke after SARS-CoV-2 infection and 418 patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection who did not have a stroke were followed up to 1 year after initial admission with SARS-CoV-2 infection . Of these, 38 stroke COVID-19 patients (67%) and 233 non-stroke COVID-19 patients (58%) followed up or were readmitted to the hospital. There was a significant difference in age for stroke vs non-stroke cohorts (65.4±12.8 9 vs 51.0±18.2 p<0.0001). For stroke vs non-stroke patients, numbness (18.4% vs 11.6%), paresthesias (15.8% vs 8.5%), brain fog or cognitive impairment (7.8% vs 7.3%), weakness (21.1% vs 26.6%), fatigue (18.4% vs 32.6%), headaches (13.2% vs 17.6%), changes in smell of taste (5.3% vs 14.1%), sleep issues or insomnia (2.6% or 10.3%), and anxiety or depression (7.9% vs 20.6%) were reported. There was no significant difference in the incidence of neurological PASC symptoms between the two cohorts p>0.05 for all symptoms.

This preliminary analysis of COVID-19 patients with 1 year follow-up demonstrates that the incidence of neurological symptoms of PASC in stroke vs non-stroke COVID-19 patients differed but did not reach significance. Stroke is associated with long term symptoms which may be similar in nature, and can be exacerbated by neurological PASC. Work is in progress expanding the study size, enrolling more patients and confounding for concomitant neurological conditions.