Could it be that she's simply out of practice?
Look, this is anecdata. I’m not making a claim about this article. I just know that my wife got substantially stupider overnight 2 years ago (plus lots of other symptoms). Via a postcovid support group organized by a semi government club here in NL she knows a bunch more people with long-term postcovid and this is the one symptom they all share. Might well still be some weird sort of selection bias etc; again, I’m not saying this is generalizable science, I’m saying that my wife got noticeably less smart and it started at the same time as all her other postcovid symptoms.
There was a hefty dividing line among my friendship group after covid which was people who went down that route and people who went down the health and fitness route. The latter seem to be doing much better in all aspects even if they started in the former group.
I was running 10km once a week before. It knocked me off my feet entirely and I don't run often now which got to me for a few months. But I fought it and can do that again now if I need to. It hurt that it did that to me but it taught me how fragile things are. Also to note I'm a qualified mathematician but some days to months I can't add numbers together and this turns out mostly to be I'm tired or not in the right state of mind rather than anything persistent. Lots of causes - best to look for the obvious ones first.
(Also, no drinking. That would be madness. Nobody in that group drinks at all anymore, it would set back their recovery by a lot)
For example, she had a cold last march which totally knocked her remaining bits of physical energy out of her, and she worried that she wouldn’t be able to come on a planned family trip to the zoo, because of the lengthy walking involved. She shared that worry in the group and another woman said “but then just rent a wheelchair at the entrance and get yourself rolled around most of the time! That’s kinda confronting, “I’m now a person who sometimes needs a wheelchair”, but it’s also very constructive and awesome if you get over that and it helps you get out of the house. We did that trip, it was super awkward (esp when she stood up from the wheelchair and everybody could see that well actually, her legs work fine), and we had a great time and for the first time after a big outing she wasn’t sick in bed for 3 days after.
Btw, a sidenote, “just go sporting” is terrible advice for people with heavy postcovid. Look up “post exertional malaise”. You gotta build it up very carefully, never push yourself too hard. It’s very hard but it appears to work (given enough patience).
On a similar note, I had some mild PTSD symptoms until I looked into it, then I started having additional symptoms(or at least I was noticing them now). On the flip side having ChatGPT4 combine my PTSD with phenomenology, positive psychology, and CBT, I think I'm close to cured. My favorite part was being able to disagree with chatGPT. When I disagree with humans, I feel like I was getting stuck in a loop.
Play along with it, I had some pretty eye opening moments during Eidetic variation of Phenomenology, but that was me personally. I think CBT/Stoicism may be able to help people who havent been corrupted by Nietzsche-like ideas.