Neurological Manifestations of Patients Infected with COVID-19: A Systematic Review

Abstract

In the light of the recent evidence, neurological manifestations have been reported in patients infected with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). To shed light on a clear-cut explanation of neurological complications followed by SARS-CoV-2, a systematic analysis was reviewed. To this point, general medical databases, such as PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar from January 1, 2020, to September 20, 2020, were systematically searched to find related published articles. Through the search strategy, 93 studies for qualitative synthesis were included. Finally, the available data of 8,753 hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) showed that the most prevalent Central Nervous System (CNS) manifestations of COVID-19 were headache (1137 cases, 18%) and dizziness (142 cases, 2%). On the other hand, some peripheral nervous system (PNS) symptoms were muscle pain (3300 cases, 53%), hypogeusia (646 cases, 11%), anosmia (545 cases, 9%), and hyposmia (379 cases, 6%). Furthermore, a small proportion of patients had ageusia (74 cases, 1%), cerebrovascular disorders (66 cases, 0.75%), and impaired consciousness (21 cases, 0.2%). Besides, some neurological features, such as encephalitis, neuralgia, ataxia, Guillain- Barre syndrome, miller fisher syndrome, intracerebral hemorrhage, polyneuritis cranialis, and dystonic posture were reported in the literature as case reports and case series. Conclusion: Taken together, data from our systematic analysis indicated that neurological manifestations in both CNS and PNS were reported in COVID-19 patients. Further observational research in this field with more participants are needed to detect the specific risk concerning neurological complications in COVID-19 infection.