• Posted July 2, 2026

Rehab Program Helps Lift Long COVID 'Brain Fog'

Many people with long COVID suffer from “brain fog,” finding it difficult to remember things, think on their feet or pay attention.

But this symptom can be addressed by rehab, according to a new study.

Ten weeks of cognitive rehabilitation helped long COVID patients lift much of their brain fog, allowing them to achieve goals they’d set in their work and home lives, researchers reported July 1 in JAMA Network Open.

“The sessions in the trial were really helpful, as they taught me to break tasks down into smaller pieces and stop getting so overwhelmed, and to visualize words that I couldn’t find,” one study participant, Emma Sullivan, said in a news release.

“I built up my concentration abilities once again so I can finish a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle by myself, after previously struggling with my granddaughter’s 30-piece puzzles,” Sullivan said. “I can now accept that long COVID has changed my life, because now I can manage it better, therefore I’m living better.”

As many as 1 in 3 people with COVID develop long COVID, and brain fog is one of the most common symptoms that can last for months or even years, researchers said in background notes.

“People might find it hard to focus or hold on to their thoughts as they struggle with memory, attention and planning, often compounded by fatigue,” lead researcher Martina Vanova, a lecturer in cognitive and biological psychology at Kingston University London in the U.K., said in a news release.

For the new study, researchers recruited 78 people in England who had been suffering from brain fog related to long COVID for at least three months.

All patients were asked to set three key goals for themselves — things like watching an entire film, staying focused on a book or becoming as proficient as they once were at their jobs.

Half were then assigned to receive cognitive rehabilitation, delivered in hour-long one-on-one video calls with a therapist. The sessions helped patients devise strategies to help them manage their cognitive symptoms. The other half of participants received standard care.

Six months after the end of the program, just over half (53%) of the rehab patients had achieved an improvement of four or more points on a 10-point goal attainment scale, compared to just 15% of those in the control group.

“Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been trying to understand better long COVID-related brain fog and have been exploring ways to address it,” joint senior researcher Dr. Dennis Chan, a professor at University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said in a news release.

“With this study we have found that an individualized treatment program of cognitive rehabilitation can help those affected return to normal function,” he said.

Aida Suarez-Gonzales, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University College London, is a co-author of the study.

“We have found a treatment that provides clinically meaningful and sustained benefit for people with cognitive long COVID symptoms,” she said in a news release.

“As this program is based on established cognitive rehabilitation techniques that have been used for other conditions, we hope that it can be easily rolled out as a treatment option for people currently living with long COVID,” Suarez-Gonzalez said.

More information

Yale Medicine has more on long COVID brain fog.

SOURCE: University College London, news release, July 1, 2026