Blindness may be one of COVID-19 serious complications

February 1, 2021  19:18

Cortical blindness can be one of the COVID-19 complications, according to a specialist from the Royal Derby Hospital in the UK, Cureus reported.

An unusual case of a 54-year-old woman infected with the coronavirus with no chronic illness has been published. The patient complained of fever, dry cough, and myalgia - muscle pain. The specialists decided to start non-invasive ventilation of the lungs, and then the woman was connected to a ventilator.

In the course of treatment, the patient was prescribed broad-spectrum antibiotics, which had a positive effect. On the 21st day of treatment, specialists observed a tonic-clonic seizure, after which the doctors performed computed tomography of the brain. They found the posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES).

Within 10 days after the CT scan, the patient was diagnosed with cortical blindness, a disease caused by damage to the occipital lobe of the brain and accompanied by a complete lack of vision.

Based on analyzes and observations, the doctors concluded that the main cause of PRES was not high blood pressure, but sepsis. Over the next 8 weeks, after discovering signs of cortical blindness, the woman recovered partially - she began to distinguish between shapes and colors, but the visual impairment was still very serious.

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