Hi KirisMum,
Karen Wheel just "pinged" me and asked me to come on (Hi Karen!). It sounds like you've already gotten some great advice here, especially the suggestions for your daughter to get some good quality sleep and exercise.
You may want to search out previous threads on "chemo brain" in this forum too as we've had many long discussions on this topic that might be helpful to you and your daughter. You'll find one of those threads here:
http://her2support.org/vbulletin/sho...ht=chemo+brain.
I also have a blog devoted to "chemo brain" at
www.YourBrainAfterChemo.blogspot.com where you'll find articles that can help. Use the search box to locate information on exercise, memory, information processing, word retrieval, multitasking, etc., or look through the index of topics.
I wasn't sure from your post if your daughter has cognitive issues or if she's just worried about it. It may help for you to know that although statistically up to about 80 percent of people going through chemo experience some amount of brain fog (ranging from mild to severe), it clears for most within one to two years following the end of treatment. And your daughter may not experience it at all.
In fact, it's possible that just the stress of dealing with her diagnosis while trying to excel in her graduate-level studies may be clouding her focus. I'm speaking only as a journalist here, but I can assure you that there is plenty of scientific evidence on how stress affects memory.
I'm five years out from treatment (and I had major chemo brain which has mostly lifted). But if I had known then what I know now after researching and writing the book with Dr. Silverman, I would have gone to a neuropsychologist for cognitive testing before I ever even had chemo (or next best thing, right after I started). This would have established a baseline so that I could be monitored over time. In fact, I believe that everyone going through treatment should have this benefit as part of their protocol.
But attention (along with good nutrition and all the other suggestions above) is key. If you don't attend, then you don't store the information in short term memory well enough to get it into long-term memory. People with "chemo brain" often have tremendous difficulty with attention: They just tune out. What really helps is to literally tell yourself to Stay Present. You can say it out loud or in your head. That worked for me while I was in chemo and still had to interview people for stories and follow the thread of our conversations.
People with brain fog also have problems with information processing. Everything takes longer. As one of the experts I interviewed for our book said to me, it's like your brain is this huge cabinet filled with files that are out of order. Everything is there, but it just takes longer to retrieve words and other data.
Your daughter needs to find a strategy that works best for her to make sure she attends to details. That might mean keeping lists or having someone in class take notes for her so that she doesn't have to divide her attention between active listening and writing, etc.
I hope this helps a little. Best of luck to you and your daughter.
Idelle