Today, there are dozens of conditions that are associated with brain fog, including allergies, menopause, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and kidney failure, as well as mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. “It's a way to describe that one's thinking, memory or concentration are just not as good as they once were,” says Andrew Budson at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System in Massachusetts.įor many, brain fog lasts weeks, months or even years Rather, it is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of cognitive symptoms, including a lack of mental clarity, memory problems and an inability to focus. Brain fog, as a term, has been used intermittently since then as a way to characterise sluggish cognition, but it became popular again in the 1990s, to describe the experience of living with chronic fatigue syndrome and some autoimmune conditions.īrain fog isn't a medical condition in its own right, however, and there are no diagnostic criteria. The concept of brain fog goes back to the early 1800s, when German physician Georg Greiner first used the words “fogging of the light of reason” or “clouding of consciousness” to describe the cognitive deficits accompanying delirium. “If there's anything positive to come out of the covid-19 pandemic, it's that the spotlight is now on brain fog and the scientific community is paying much more attention to it,” says Brennan. ![]() The hope is that this interest could improve care for those experiencing it. “It's something that patients with a wide variety of different medical problems have said has interfered with their ability to function for a long time,” says Sabina Brennan, a neuroscientist at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and author of Beating Brain Fog. Shukis is one of millions of people worldwide reporting a severe dent in cognitive functioning following a covid-19 infection, and as a result, the issue of brain fog has been thrust into the limelight. It just felt like my brain wasn't working right.” “I had never had any difficulties with these kinds of things before. She would forget to make dinner, had trouble finding the words to describe things and got confused about school pick-up times. After having covid-19, Shukis had frequent episodes of memory loss. ![]() ![]() “I sat at the table for half an hour, looking at my phone, wondering where everyone was. “But instead of going there, I got in my car and drove to a completely different place,” she recalls. Before leaving her home in Plano, Texas, she checked the calendar, making a mental note of the restaurant and when to meet. COURNEY SHUKIS was looking forward to lunch: she had just recovered from covid-19 and was glad to be meeting her friends again.
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