Early in the pandemic, a 28-year-old customer service representative and portrait painter caught COVID-19.
She had a high fever for a few days and trouble breathing. Her sense of smell and taste disappeared. But by mid-April 2020, she had recovered enough to start working from home.
It wasn't until June, when she saw her family for the first time since her illness, that she realized she'd lost something else. She could no longer recognize her own father or distinguish him from her uncle.
“My dad’s voice came out of a stranger’s face,” she later told researchers.
It's not clear how many people have developed face blindness after having COVID-19. But the woman, whom researchers identified only as "Annie" to protect her privacy, was one of more than 50 long COVID patients who reported to Dartmouth College researchers in a new study they were having trouble identifying faces after their infection.
Some people are born with face blindness, called prosopagnosia, while others lose the ability to identify faces from brain damage, typically caused by a stroke or brain injury.
Although facial recognition ability lies along a spectrum, another recent study found that more than 1% of people struggle to recognize even those they've met many times. --->READ MORE HERE
After a bout of COVID-19, Annie couldn’t recognize her father’s face, even though she’s a part-time portrait artist.
“My dad’s voice came out of a stranger’s face,” the case study, identified only by her first name for privacy reasons, told researchers.
It’s now believed that Annie’s experience with “face blindness” is a result of long COVID-19, which has been linked to other neurological effects including brain fog, memory problems and a loss of smell and taste.
Annie, 28, is the first and only person known to have face blindness — what experts call prosopagnosia — as a result of COVID-19 infection, according to a new peer-reviewed Dartmouth College study published in the Cortex medical journal.
“Faces are like water in my head,” the customer service rep and part-time artist told doctors.
Face blindness can also be caused by a stroke, a traumatic brain injury or certain neurological diseases, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
In some cases, it can be present at birth, and it may run in families.--->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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