COVID-19 infection frequently necessitates hospitalization for those who develop a serious illness. According to estimates from a group of experts, more than 5,000 individuals have been hospitalized as a result of COVID-19 by October 2021.
The heart is the prime organ in the human body, and surprisingly it is spared from the effects of the covid-19 virus. A team of specialists has checked several samples with the help of which they have conferred this fact in front of the medical fraternity.
Normal Heart Functions Even After Getting Treated With Covid-19
The team has gone through several samples as well as case studies from different regions to overrule any other probabilities than these shocking facts of the effects of the virus.
Inflammation of the heart muscle is one of the consequences that can arise with COVID-19 infection. Myocarditis is a disorder that can produce symptoms such as palpitations, breathing difficulty, cardiac rhythm disturbances, and chest tightness.
However, new research offers grounds for optimism in terms of heart function following COVID-19 treatment.
Researchers discovered that most people’s heart function returned to normal a few months after being hospitalized with COVID-19 infection in a recent study.
“The majority of people who have had a COVID-19 infection are doing well, according to our findings. Following recuperation, the majority of people’s cardiac functions returned to normal, “Jorun Tangen, a former researcher at the Institute of Clinical Medicine, states. Nonetheless, several of the patients had a little alteration in cardiac function.
These individuals had a poor left ventricular function, which means the left side of the heart muscle wasn’t working as well as it should have been. This was related to excessive blood pressure or cardiac disease that the patients had before becoming infected with the coronavirus in the majority of cases. This did not, however, apply to everyone.
“We cannot explain the slightly impaired heart function in six of the individuals who participated in the trial by hypertensive heart disease or other cardiac disorders,” the researcher explains. High blood pressure over time causes hypertensive heart disease, which affects the heart’s capacity to pump blood around the body.
The diminished cardiac function in these six patients, however, could not be explained by this condition. According to Tangen, we may assume that the change in cardiac function is a result of COVID-19-related problems.
“We can’t rule out the possibility that these individuals’ cardiac function was harmed as a result of COVID-19-related myocarditis,” she says. Patients who have altered heart function after receiving COVID-19 should be identified and followed up on since some may need to begin taking heart medication.
“If the patient’s heart function is diminished to the point where he or she requires cardiac medication, the patient should begin treatment according to our heart failure recommendations.” A total of 92 individuals with COVID-19 infection were included in the research. The participants were on average 59 years old, with slightly less than half of them being female.
“Three months after the patients were discharged from the hospital, we performed echocardiographic exams on them. The research is a multi-center study including 23 hospitals from throughout the country, “Tangen explains.
Ultrasound is used to examine the heart in echocardiography. The technology is precise and allows researchers to investigate the structure, movement, and blood flow through the heart. However, the researchers utilized several echocardiographic assessment methods in the study, and the results varied depending on which methods they used.
“We found that everyone’s heart function was normal when we employed typical echocardiographic procedures,” the researcher explains. “However, we discovered that six of the research subjects had a somewhat impaired cardiac function after having COVID-19 when we employed the more sensitive approach of strain echocardiography.”
