B.C. companies look to help, study people with long COVID

It’s a common and growing problem but so little is known about it. One Lower Mainland company is putting out a public plea to help anyone who thinks they have long COVID.

ABI Wellness is based in Langley and in conjunction with another company, is currently offering a free, three-month virtual program to help people who are experiencing symptoms.

“What we’re noticing is it’s really a brain injury and … we’re partnering with Eaton Cognitive Health Optimization Systems, which is another Vancouver-based company. They’re offering the program for free to B.C. residents who are noticing ongoing cognitive deficits following their infection with COVID-19,” says Shaun Porter, who is a neuroscientist and COO at ABI Wellness in Langley.

The symptoms vary when it comes to long COVID and they can be easy to miss or dismiss.

“It’s really the brain fog that we hear a lot about, and brain fog is a bit of a hard term to define but it’s that sense of lack of mental clarity, more difficulty thinking clearly, finding words, a lot of mental fatigue from doing your everyday activities or tasks, even being able to do your job that you’ve been able to do. The program is designed initially for concussion and brain injury because it presents very similarly to long COVID on the cognitive side and so we’re looking to apply this.”

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Porter adds for many who got the deadly virus early on, they’ve already put months of suffering behind them but there is a desperate need for answers.

“We’re two years into this and people need help and there are not a lot of options for people who are suffering cognitively to get good care and while more research is obviously needed, we need to continue good research, but people need help today. We can’t wait another two [or] five years to get solid answers but there are really good programs out there that have proven to be helpful for similar conditions, similar symptom presentation and we need to utilize all those tools at our disposal to help people today.”

He explains long COVID and having a concussion can be very similar. “People who have a concussion often report headaches, difficulty concentrating, difficulty understanding complex thoughts, difficulty planning or organizing, really engaging in all those key things that are important in terms of multi-tasking and going day-to-day and so that seems to be very similar with long COVID.”

The program is available to anyone across the country, but Porter says they really want to start at home and help British Columbians.

“It’s entirely virtual. We really want to help increase accessibility. A lot of the time people with long COVID are struggling to pace their energy levels and so, having to transit to somewhere is not a good use of that time — we can utilize their energy to actually help towards the rehab.”

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He says they’re taking people at their word that they’ve had COVID to help as many people as they can. To find out more, email start@myechos.com.

“We want to do good. We don’t want to put up unnecessary barriers. I know a lot of people who have long COVID have really struggled to get access to care because they lack certain tests or confirmations in order to confirm that they had, in fact, an infection and we’re not looking for any of that. We’re looking for people to come in and tell us: when did they have their COVID infection, what are their symptoms, do they match with what we’re looking to help, so, concentration, processing information, planning — are they struggling in those areas? We let them know a bit more about the program, they can try it out for a day and then if that’s something they feel they can commit to that, then we are ready to enroll them. Even if you don’t think you’re able to engage in this, the program is very individualized to you and we can adapt to make sure that it fits what you’re able to do and help adapt with you as you continue to recover.”

This comes as the federal government is trying to find out how many Canadians are suffering from long COVID.

The Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada have put out a survey to try to get a broad idea of how common it is for people to feel lingering effects after an infection. PHAC says there have been reports of more than 100 symptoms associated with the condition.

Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam says researchers are trying to figure out what percentage of people who get COVID-19 are dealing with its prolonged effects. “I think at the World Health Organization, the earlier estimates put it at 10 to 20 per cent, but we know more recent estimates have put it at maybe as high as 50 per cent.”

Tam says there’s emerging evidence that COVID-19 vaccines offer some protection against long COVID, but those studies are still ongoing.