It is called the long Covid. Months after contracting the virus, 10 to 30% of people are still suffering from the effects. Testimony in Montpellier where Stéphanie struggles to recover, between fatigue, loss of smell, memory and attention problems.
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Facing her computer, Stéphanie is concentrated. She doesn’t play. She is in the middle of an attentional rehabilitation session. 30 minutes of exercise per day, for 5 weeks, to regain your cognitive abilities altered by the Covid. She started this rehabilitation two weeks ago, when she realized that time was not giving her memory back.
Attentional rehabilitation exercises to find the way back to memory.
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© F3LR
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Faculties diminished since the Covid
Stephanie Henri has 46 years, she is the mother of two children and contracted the Covid last April, during the first wave. It was when she believed herself capable of resuming her work as administrative framework at the rectorate of Montpellier, in September, that she realized the seriousness of her cognitive disorders: she could no longer finish a task, to remember what she had done during the day. Loss of memory and attention from which she constantly suffers in her daily life.
Remembering your shopping list, knowing what you had planned to do, remembering that you had an appointment with the dentist … We may not realize it but it’s true that we use a lot of memory and when it is no longer there, we have to write everything down!
“It will be good to get to a correct level” hopes the young woman, returning to her exercises.
Insurmountable fatigue
Re-muscle his memory, but also his body. Falling ill in April and weakened by her long convalescence, Stéphanie had to give up running. Some days a simple walk wears her out.
Even tired, Stéphanie forced herself to take the air to strengthen her muscles.
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© F3 LR
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“Regularly, I can have big bouts of fatigue as in the acute phase of the disease. All day I will stay on the sofa, not being able to do much” analyzes the mother.
I even have difficulty preparing the meal, it’s times when the body says “stop”
Altered taste and smell
Faced with this recurring fatigue, doctors do not yet have a solution. No remedy either to regain the taste and smell, which Stéphanie has lost for 10 months. All that remains is the memory of the flavors. So in the kitchen, faced with the loss of appetite, she has to force herself.
“Some foods, one day I can taste very well and another when I am more tired, or not in the same state, I feel the taste altered, or not at all! And my diet is completely disrupted .. . ” confesses Stéphanie.
With odorless and tasteless dishes, it’s hard to keep an appetite.
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© F3LR
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Day after day, by dint of training, Stéphanie has already won small victories over the disease: smelling the taste of fruit or memorizing a phone number. She now hopes for a suitable treatment to be able to return to a “normal life”.
In Montpellier, Pauline Sénet and Delphine Aldebert went to meet Stéphanie for France 3 Languedoc-Roussillon.
The resolution of the deputies to take into account the long Covid
The motion for a resolution was adopted unanimously by the 120 deputies present in the hemicycle less than a week ago, Wednesday 17 February, at the instigation of Patricia Mirallès. This LRM deputy fromHérault herself contracted the virus in the first wave and still suffers from it.
