[Guest Lecture] What we know about long COVID

ADAPT is a prospective cohort study that has been following up COVID-19 patients since the earliest days of the pandemic. It has allowed researchers to track the emergence of long COVID, a syndrome that includes symptoms such as ongoing breathlessness, fatigue, chest tightness and "brain fog".
 
Over the course of the study, participants have contributed blood cells, cardiac and brain MRIs, tests of respiratory function and more. The research has uncovered molecular and functional correlates that are helping to explain long COVID. Meanwhile, clinicians at the St Vincents’ Hospital, Sydney long COVID clinic are successfully applying rehabilitation strategies drawn from the treatments of chronic pain and other functional disorders. 

Guests
Professor Gail Matthews MRCP FRACP (Head of Infectious Diseases, St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney; Kirby Institute)
Dr David Darley FRACP (St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney)
Professor Steven Faux FRACGP FAFRM FFPMANZCA (Director Rehabilitation and Pain Medicine, Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney)}
Professor Bruce Brew AM FRACP FAAN (Director of the Peter Duncan Neurosciences Research Unit, St Vincent's Hospital Sydney)

Production
Recorded at St Vincent’s Hospital for the Curran Foundation.  Post-production by Mic Cavazzini DPhil. Music licenced from Epidemic Sound includes ‘Tree Tops’ and ‘Yellow Lead’ by Autohacker and ‘Thyone’ and ‘Orthosie’ by Ben Elson. Image by PASIEKA licenced from Getty Images.

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References
The Curran Foundation at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney
Immunological dysfunction persists for 8 months following initial mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection [Nat Immunol]
Myocardial fibrosis occurs in non-hospitalised patients with chronic symptoms after COVID-19 [Int J Cardiol Heart Vasc].
Limited recovery from post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 at 8 months in a prospective cohort [ERJ Open Res]
Persistent symptoms up to four months after community and hospital-managed SARS-CoV-2 infection [MJA]