First-of-its-kind Ohio State study identifies the drivers behind COVID-19 sensory issues
COLUMBUS, OH, UNITED STATES, March 5, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Key takeaways
• The Ohio State University College of Medicine conducted the first objective study measuring multisensory losses in long COVID patients.
• The research found that the severity and breadth of sensory dysfunctions are influenced by patient age, initial COVID-19 severity and cognitive functions.
• Future studies are planned to further investigate the systematic impact of long COVID and understand why sensory and cognitive symptoms vary so widely, with the goal of improving patient care.
New research from The Ohio State University College of Medicine is the first to objectively measure multisensory losses in COVID-19 patients.
“Our goal is to understand why some long COVID patients experience different profiles of sensory losses while others do not,” said Kai Zhao, PhD, professor in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery. “We believe this knowledge will help us improve the care for long COVID patients.”
The study, published in the journal BMC Medicine (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12916-026-04726-x), follows long COVID patients with self-reported complaints in at least one area: smell, taste, balance/dizziness, hearing and brain fog.
Researchers put them through standardized objective assessments for smell, taste, hearing, vestibular, balance/dizziness and brain fog/cognitive.
Sixty patients ages 27 – 78 who had COVID between January 1, 2020 – December 21, 2023, and had persistent symptoms for four to 50 months participated in the study.
Most of these patients had mild COVID-19 cases. Only eight patients were hospitalized, with two needing breathing tubes.
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Patients with smell, taste, hearing, balance issues, neurologic conditions and severe health problems unrelated to COVID-19, history of severe head trauma or traumatic brain injury, and pregnancy were excluded.
Patients in the study self-reported high and overlapping issues: 67.3% smell, 63.6% taste, 56.6% balance and dizziness, 31.8% hearing and 51.3% brain fog/cognitive issues.
The objective assessments confirmed: 65.5% smell, 16% taste, 31.6% balance and dizziness, 53.4% hearing and 19.1% brain fog/cognitive issues.
“Our research found strong associations between confirmed balance/dizziness and hearing impairments, likely due to the shared inner ear structure of the auditory and vestibular systems, as well as among brain fog, balance and hearing impairments, implicating likely involvement of the central nervous system,” Zhao said. “Strong associations were also found between patients with smell and taste issues, in particular those tasks require more cognitive involvement, e.g. recognizing a flavor or odor.”
The study found that COVID-19 impacts the sensory systems broadly and differently. This is driven by patient age, initial disease severity as well as cognitive functions.
In the eight patients who were hospitalized during their COVID-19 infection, all had confirmed smell dysfunction, seven had confirmed balance dysfunction, six had hearing loss and four had cognitive dysfunction.
“This sheds light on the impact of initial disease severity on broad sensory dysfunctions,” Zhao said.
It’s unclear how multisensory dysfunctions manifest among long COVID patients or how long-term versus short-term phases differ.
According to the World Health Organization, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in 775 million cases and more than 7 million deaths worldwide.
Most COVID-19 patients have symptoms similar to the common cold or flu. Others report neurological symptoms including sensory loss after the initial infection.
Future research will longitudinally follow these long COVID patients – both objectively and subjectively – to further help to answer how these symptoms may improve differentially over time, and to provide better prognosis predictions.
Ohio State authors include: Ahmad Odeh, Veronica L. Formanek, Christina Smith, Nidhi Jha, Junichi Tajino, PhD, Jessica H. Lewis, Lauren Gastineau, Shivani Patel, Songzhu Zhao, Lai Wei, Daniel M. Merfeld, PhD and Christopher T. Simons, PhD.
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MEDIA CONTACT:
Serena Smith
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
Serena.Smith@osumc.edu
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