Surviving a case of COVID-19 that’s bad enough to land you in the hospital is hard enough.
Surviving a case of COVID-19 that’s bad enough to land you in the hospital is hard enough. But life after the hospital stay – and especially after an intensive care stay – is no bed of roses, either, according to a new study.
Within two months of leaving the hospital, nearly 7% of the patients had died, including more than 10% of the patients treated in an intensive care unit. Fifteen percent had ended up back in the hospital. The data come from more than 1,250 patients treated in 38 hospitals across Michigan this spring and summer, when the state was one of the earliest to experience a peak in cases.
When researchers interviewed 488 of the surviving patients by phone, around 60 days after their hospitalization, they heard a litany of health and life woes. They’ve published their findings in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
“These data suggest that the burden of COVID-19 extends far beyond the hospital and far beyond health,” says Vineet Chopra, M.D., M.Sc., lead author of the study and chief of hospital medicine at Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan’s academic medical center. “The mental, financial and physical tolls of this disease among survivors appear substantial.”
Read more at Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan
Image: A COVID-19 care team at Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan's academic medical center, in spring 2020 (Credit: University of Michigan)
