Cognitive Rehab: One Patient’s Painstaking Path Through Long Covid Therapy
The New York Times
Samantha Lewis is relearning some basic aspects of her daily life after struggling with brain fog and other lingering symptoms for more than a year since being infected by the virus.
AURORA, Ill. — There is sobering evidence of Samantha Lewis’s struggle with long Covid on her bathroom mirror.
Above the sink, she has posted a neon pink index card scrawled with nine steps (4. Wet brush 5. Toothpaste) reminding her how to brush and floss her teeth. It is one of many strategies Ms. Lewis, 34, has learned from “cognitive rehab,” an intensive therapy program for Covid-19 survivors whose lives have been upended by problems like brain fog, memory lapses, dizziness and debilitating fatigue.
Nearly two years into the pandemic, advances have been made in treating Covid itself, but long Covid — a constellation of lingering health problems that some patients experience — remains little understood. Post-Covid clinics around the country are trying different approaches to help patients desperate for answers, but there is little data on outcomes so far, and doctors say it is too soon to know what might work, and for which patients.
