Delazer, Luisa;
Pressler, Noah;
Balestrini, Simona;
Xiao, Fenglai;
Clayton, Lisa M;
Anders-Cannon, Jonny;
Salvatierra, Rebecca;
... Koepp, Matthias J; + view all
(2024)
COVID-19 response in a long-term care facility for people with epilepsy.
Epilepsia Open
10.1002/epi4.12940.
(In press).
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Abstract
Objective: To assess asymptomatic rates and severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection in people with epilepsy and their healthcare workers in a long-term care facility which had implemented weekly surveillance testing between April 2020 and June 2022. // Methods: Questionnaires focused on objective and subjective COVID-19 symptoms for people with epilepsy residing in and their healthcare workers at the Chalfont Centre for Epilepsy in June 2022. Demographic information, comorbidities, and seizure frequency were gathered from medical records. We also collected responses on objective and subjective COVID-19 symptoms from healthcare workers who participated in a prospective study assessing the reaction to COVID-19 vaccinations (SAFER). // Results: Fifty-five out of 89 (62%) residents tested positive at least once on weekly PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 during the period of interest; 20 of those (37%) were asymptomatic. In comparison, of those 63 healthcare workers who tested positive at least once on weekly testing during the same period, only four (6%) were asymptomatic. Of the 159 healthcare workers who also participated in the SAFER study, 41 tested positive at least once, and seven (17%) were completely asymptomatic during infection with SARS-CoV-2. // Significance: People with epilepsy living in a long-term care facility were more likely to present with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections than healthcare workers at the same facility. Despite possible bias in the reporting of subjective symptoms due to management-by-proxy, there is no evidence that vulnerable people living in an epilepsy long-term care facility showed reduced resilience towards infections. // Plain Language Summary: People with epilepsy living in care home facilities had a surprisingly high degree of asymptomatic infections with SARS-CoV-2. Very few residents had severe or fatal outcomes. This is in stark contrast to the widely reported bad outcomes for people without epilepsy in other care homes. People with epilepsy reported significantly less symptoms than their healthcare workers. No changes in seizure frequency during or after infection were observed.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | COVID-19 response in a long-term care facility for people with epilepsy |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1002/epi4.12940 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/epi4.12940 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Epilepsia Open published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International League Against Epilepsy. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Asymptomatic rate, fatality ratio, SARS-CoV-2, seizures |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10190822 |
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