The "Fourth Wave"? COVID-19 and consecutive cognitive impairment

The COVID-19 pandemic poses new challenges for the healthcare systems world-wide which will go beyond prevention, acute and intensive care treatment of patients with severe illness. A large proportion of "COVID-survivors" - and not only elderly patients - suffers from "post-COVID-syndrome". Risk factors are preexisting somatic multimorbidity, cognitive and cerebral changes together with pneumonia and hypoxemia, intensive care treatment and confusional states during the acute phase of illness. Post-COVID cognitive deficits usually manifest as a frontal dysexecutive syndrome combined with fatigue and dysphoria and/or with attentional and memory deficits. Several pathogenetic mechanisms of COVID encephalopathy are understood, but no specific treatment strategies have been established so far. We assume that general practitioners, psychiatrists, neurologists and social workers will need to take care of the activation, reintegration and expert appraisals of patients with post-COVID fatigue and cognitive deficits during the years to come.