Impact of Post Covid-19 Syndrome on Daily Living Activities in Elderly Patients without Previous Functional Loss

Abstract Background: The COVID-19 infection that emerged in De-cember 2019 has led to a high incidence of infection and caused significant morbidity and mortality, particularly among older adults. Post-COVID syndrome is believed to be a condition affecting multiple systems, encompassing physical symptoms such as breathlessness, fatigue, and anosmia and functional im-pairments leading to reduced activity levels, cognitive dysfunc-tion, and psychological issues such as anxiety and depression. Aim of Study: To assesses the impact of post-COVID syn-drome on functional activity level in elderly patients without prior impairment to detect the effect of COVID-19 infection on the functional acivity especially ADL and LADL. Material and Methods: Our study was a prospective cohort study conducted on 100 older adults who follow-up in the out-patient geriatric clinic of Ain Shams University using a stand-ard questionnaire. Results: Highly significant increase in anosmia, loss of taste, hospital and ICU admission, and post-covid complica-tions in the severe and moderate post-covid group compared to other groups (p<0.05 respectively). Significant decrease in Vaccine status in the severe post-covid group compared to oth-er groups (p=0.041). Highly significant decrease in ADL and IADL scores and dependency in severe post-covid group com-pared to other groups (p<0.05 respectively). With highly significant increase in dependency rates in se-vere post-covid group compared to other groups (p<0.05 re-spectively) which reflected the significant effect of post-covid syndrome on the functional capacity of elderly patients. Conclusion: Post-COVID-19 syndrome have a highly sig-nificant effect on functional capacities and daily living activ-ities of elderly patients without previous functional loss with significant decrease in risk of post covid syndrome symptoms in vaccinated patients.