In this paper published in Neurology, the authors conducted a scoping review of available literature on COVID-19 to assess the potential impact on neurologists in terms of prevalent comorbidities and incidence of new neurological events in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Among screened articles, 322 of 4014 (8.0%) of hospitalized patients diagnosed and treated for COVID-19 had a pre-existing neurological illness. Several retrospective studies demonstrated an increased risk of secondary neurological complications in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 (incidences of 6%, 20% and 36.4% were reported). The emerging literature suggests a daunting relationship between COVID-19 and neurological illness and that neurologists need to be prepared to reorganize their consulting practices to serve the neurological needs of patients during this pandemic. The authors also concluded that more sensitive data extraction measures and comprehensive clinical documentation are required to better understand the prevalence of neurological comorbidities and pre-existing neurological disorders in patients with COVID-19.
https://n.neurology.org/content/early/2020/04/24/WNL.0000000000009673
by Marialuisa Zedde and Francesco Cavallieri