‘Brain fog’ is plaguing COVID survivors — can video games help?

Medical professionals are beginning to learn about the emergence of new side effects from the coronavirus, and in recent weeks, new research yielded that more than half of people sickened by the virus may have a higher risk of anxiety, depression, and other neurological disorders.

One of the neurological issues popping up is being described as “brain fog,” with symptoms ranging from trouble concentrating to having difficulty remembering things.

Now, researchers want to see if video games can help people battling brain fog.

What is “brain fog”?

The initial phenomenon popped up in the summer months when patients began describing neurological problems, which many thought wasn’t one of the areas that COVID-19 could infect. However, recent research shows that patients hospitalized with the virus have been dealing with a number of neurological symptoms.

A study from researchers at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago in October found about four out of five patients hospitalized with Covid-19 suffer neurological symptoms, including muscle pain, headaches, confusion, dizziness and the loss of smell or taste. Research that honed in on Wuhan, China — where the virus first popped up in late 2019 — found that 36% of patients developed neurological symptoms.

“It’s not something that you might normally think of with COVID-19,” Dr. Helen Valsamis, chief of neurological services at New York City Health and Hospitals Kings Country, said via NBC 4. “People are finding that it’s really interfering with their ability to work, their ability to function, their daily life.”

The development of brain fog could make life a hassle for those affected by it, which could extend professionally into work. You need to have the ability to concentrate and remember assignments; those two things are some of the core functions of holding any job. While symptoms of brain fog tend to linger for months even after recovery from Covid-19, treatment remains murky — but could video games be the secret antidote to thinking clearly again?

Can video games help brain fog?

The Verge reported some think video games could treat some of the symptoms described in brain fog. The specific game, “EndeavorRX,” became the first video game to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration last summer to be prescribed as treatment in children between the ages of eight and 12 with ADHD, and now, doctors want to see if it can help people recovery from Covid-19 symptoms.

Faith Gunning, a neuropsychologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, said that research used from the game showed the changes in the brain can happen, especially in older adults that suffered cognitive issues.

“We’re looking for two main outcomes: cognitive skills and daily functioning. Because really, that’s the goal. We’re talking about COVID-19 disrupting people’s ability to function in their everyday lives,” Gunning told the outlet.

“A video game is also scalable. It’s something that can be given to lots of people. We need things we can get out into the community. Even if it’s a small subset of people who had COVID-19, the sheer number of people who had COVID-19 means we need interventions that are effective and can be disseminated widely. We’re not going to have the workforce to have one-on-one cognitive intervention for all the people who were sick.”

Clinical trials conducted by Weill Cornell Medicine and Vanderbilt University Medical Center are currently underway. Scientists plan to investigate the efficiency of “AKL-T01,” a remotely-delivered cognitive intervention, in “targeting and improving cognition and functional outcomes in individuals recovery from COVID-19.

It plans to test on people over 18 that survived the virus and show cognitive impairment in at least one screening measure of attention and executive function.