Positive Impacts of a Four-Week Neuro-Meditation Program on Cognitive Function in Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Study objective: Long COVID patients can experience high levels of impairment in their cognitive function and mental health. Using a parallel randomized control trial, we evaluated the effectiveness of a neuro-meditation program to reduce cognitive impairment in patients with long COVID. Methods: A total of 34 patients with long COVID were randomized to an intervention group (G-Int; n = 17) or a control group (G-Con; n = 17) and 15 healthy participants were constitutive of a normative group (G-Nor). The intervention consisted of ten 30-min sessions of Rebalance® over a period of five weeks. Each session included sound therapy and coach-guided meditation associated with light stimulations (i.e., chromotherapy). Primary outcomes were performance on five computerized cognitive tasks (choice response time, pattern comparison, Simon, pursuit rotor task, and Corsi block-tapping task), mental and physical fatigue (Chalder fatigue scale), perceived stress (perceived stress scale) and mood (profiles of mood states). Secondary outcomes were anxiety and depressive symptoms (hospital anxiety and depression scale), muscular pain, joint pain, and headaches using visual analog scales (VAS) as well as sleep quality (Spiegel sleep questionnaire). Assessments were conducted at baseline and at 1–2 and 7–8 days of follow-up. Results: Compared to healthy subjects, long COVID patients showed significant differences at baseline on all the self-report questionnaires, and a Rebalance® program improved all the subjective reports, as well as cognitive performances, especially on reaction time-based tasks. In particular, only the G-Int group revealed shortened reaction times in the choice reaction time (RTbaseline = 593 ± 121 ms vs. RTpost2 = 521 ± 86 ms, p < 0.001), Simon (RTbaseline = 539 ± 123 ms vs. RTpost2 = 494 ± 134 ms, p < 0.01), and pattern comparison tasks (RTbaseline = 1244 ± 315 ms vs. RTpost2 = 1079 ± 213 ms, p < 0.001). Conclusions) Initial evidence suggests that neuro-meditation reduces cognitive impairment and improves physical and mental fatigue, muscle and joint pain, symptoms of depression and anxiety, mood disturbances as well as sleep quality. The Rebalance® program hence constitutes a promising non-pharmacological intervention for the treatment of long-term psychological/cognitive outcomes of COVID-19.

Complementary and alternative medicine for long COVID: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials

“…Of the trials included in this review, 2 were multicenter trials 17,18 and the other 12 were single-center trials. 19–30 Except for one four-armed trial, 19 one three-armed trial, 28 the other were two-armed trials. 17,18,20–27,29,30 Interventions used in the 14 trials varied: 2 studies used olfactory training, 17,26 1 used transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation, 30 2 used a dietary supplement, 20,29 2 used olfactory training plus dietary supplement, 18,27 1 used neuro-meditation, 28 1 used aromatherapy, 25 3 used inspiratory muscle training (IMT), 22–24 1 used IMT and concurrent training, 19 and 1 used ENO Breathe (an online breathing and wellbeing program).…”

“…Four trials were considered to have unknown bias risk for generating the random sequence due to insufficient information about the specific method of randomization used, 17,26,28,30 whereas the remaining nine trials were regarded as low bias risk. 18–25,27,29 Five trials provided appropriate random allocation concealment and were classified as low bias risk, 21–24,29 whereas the remaining nine provided insufficient data and were classified as unknown risk.…”

“…29 One study used a neuro-meditation program for cognitive impairment post-COVID-19 infection. 28 Two studies apsssssssplied aromatherapy 25 or dietary supplement 20 for relieving fatigue after COVID-19. Three studies evaluated IMT [22][23][24] for persistent breathlessness and mild-to-moderate lung fibrosis.…”

“…While four studies did not provide sufficient information about safety of CAM treatments for LC, 23,24,27,28 10 studies reported relevant information about adverse effects from the interventions. [17][18][19][20][21][22]25,26,29,30 Five studies noted no adverse effects during the study period.…”

“…[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]27,29 Five trials provided appropriate random allocation concealment and were classified as low bias risk, [21][22][23][24]29 whereas the remaining nine provided insufficient data and were classified as unknown risk. [17][18][19][20][25][26][27][28]30 Five trials were blinded to both participants and personnel and were regarded as low risk of bias, 19,21,22,29,30 whereas six trials did not and were considered as high risk of bias. [20][21][22][23]27,28 The remaining three trials were rated as unknown risk of bias since insufficient information was provided.…”