Mom Says Son Who Developed Post-COVID Psychosis 'Woke up a Different Person'

A California woman whose teenage son developed post-COVID psychosis has warned other parents about the condition.

On August 2, about a month after Daniel Salinas had caught coronavirus, he woke up with psychiatric symptoms including marked behavioral changes. The 14-year-old from Orange County had had a migraine headache a day earlier.

The boy's mother, Wilma Singh, said she had been alerted to his behavior by Daniel's younger brother, who said the teenager was "talking to himself."

Psychosis is a term used to describe a range of psychiatric symptoms that may be brought on by other mental conditions.

Symptoms of psychosis include hallucinations—seeing and hearing things that others do not see or hear—and delusions, in which a person holds false beliefs. People with psychosis may also speak incoherently, act inappropriately or experience depression and anxiety.

Singh took Daniel to the Irvine Medical Center at the University of California. He was then transferred to the Children's Hospital of Orange County.

Singh told CBS Los Angeles news outlet KCAL9: "I felt like he had that severe migraine, slept and woke up a different person—someone who is more agitated, angry, anxious… that's the total opposite of my son."

Daniel's doctors said last week they were not sure how long he would need to stay in hospital and planned to run more tests.

Singh added: "I want parents to know that it's very important to avoid getting COVID."

Emergency room physician Dr. Michael Daignault told KCAL9 that he had seen COVID psychosis before. Cases in children may be linked to inflammation in the central nervous system, he added.

COVID-19 researchers have highlighted virus-related neurological symptoms before, particularly in children.

In July this year, scientists at the University of Liverpool and other institutions in the U.K. found that 3.8 percent of children hospitalized with COVID had brain or nerve complications.

The study, which was published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health journal, looked at 1,334 children hospitalized with COVID between April 2020 and January 2021. It found 52 cases of children under 18 with neurological complications—around 3.8 percent, compared with 0.9 percent in adults, according to the University of Liverpool.

The symptoms observed included behavioral change, hallucinations, brain inflammation and psychosis. Brain impacts and long-term consequences are not yet known.

The paper's joint senior author, Dr Benedict Michael from the University of Liverpool, said in July: "Now we appreciate the capacity for COVID-19 to cause a wide range of brain complications in those children who are hospitalised with this disease, with the potential to cause life-long disability, we desperately need research to understand the immune mechanisms which drive this."