Stroke in critical COVID-19 patients: a cautionary tale from the frontlines

Although Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is primarily a disease of the respiratory system in its transmission and clinical manifestations, physicians have also reported a tropism toward the nervous system.

Neurological symptoms can occur as one of many systemic manifestations of a critical form of the disease or in isolation as the predominant presenting complaint.

We report a series of 6 patients who suffered significant cerebrovascular accidents while being treated for critical COVID-19 in the intensive care units of a quaternary care hospital in New York's Hudson valley.

This series demonstrates how a relatively rare but catastrophic neurological complication can occur in patients with COVID-19 while they are being managed for their more common problems such as respiratory and renal failure.