Investigation of the Effects of COVID-19 on Perception, Attention, Memory, Balance, and Quality of Life in the Elderly

Material And Method: A total of 45 volunteers older than 65 years who had not had COVID-19 were included in group 1. A total of 45 volunteers older than 65 years who had recovered from COVID-19 were included in group 2 (elderly people who have had COVID-19 at least 6 months ago). After obtaining the individuals' demographic data, we conducted vestibular assessment for balance and administered the Stroop test for attention, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), the digit span test for short-term memory, and a quality-of-life test.

Results: Mean age of the individuals who had had COVID-19 was 68.24 ± 3.32 years, and the mean age of the individuals who had not had COVID-19 was 68.55 ± 3.34 years. There were statistically significant correlations between the two groups for the Stroop test ( < .05), MMSE ( < .05), the digit span test for perception and attention ( < .05), and the vestibular assessment quality-of-life test ( < .01). Sensory ( < .001), past, present, and future activities ( < .05), social participation ( < .001), and death ( < .05) were found to be significant in the total score ( < .001). The covariance analysis of elderly individuals who had had COVID-19 revealed that they performed significantly worse on the balance, perception, attention, memory, and quality-of-life tests than elderly individuals who had not had COVID-19.

Conclusion: The negative effects of COVID-19 were found among elderly individuals older than 65 years. We suggest that telerehabilitation should be developed for elderly people who have recovered from COVID-19 and that its effects investigated.