Patients with Covid-19 can experience neurological complications, for example cranial nerve palsy. We present a case with a patient treated for severe Covid-19 infection. She was intubated for 16 days and was ventilated in the prone-position for several hours a day during her care in the intensive care unit (ICU). She developed paralysis of the left facial nerve, observed while intubated. After extubation the patient was hoarse and had dysphagia and examination showed paralysis of the left hypoglossal nerve with the tongue deviating to the left and of the left vagus nerve causing a paralysis of the left vocal cord. It is impossible to know whether the paralysis of the three cranial nerves was due to direct damage by the Covid-19 virus or due to compression of the nerves during the ICU care. As facial nerve palsy has been shown to be more common in patients with Covid-19, we believe that the paralysis in our patient was due to a combination of both.
[Patient treated for severe Covid-19 with paralysis of cranial nerves]