New research by Albany Medical Center is looking specifically at patients who suffered from long COVID, more than four years after the initial outbreak of the pandemic.

Long COVID, for some, lasted at least three months, and it was never the same symptom. Some people lost their sense of smell, had taste issues, brain fog and severe fatigue. 

The doctors at Albany Med studied these patients and compared them to other people with COVID-19. They found two important things.

First, there's a way to identify the presence and severity of long COVID in a person's blood work. Second, they discovered that long-term COVID is a single disease and not the result of multiple conditions.

"So this study found out that no matter the type of symptom that the patient brings to the clinic," said Dr. Ariel Jaitovich, a pulmonologist with Albany Med. "There is a common signature, a common set of features that make those patients similar."

That second part is crucial to creating a treatment, because doctors could target everyone with long COVID universally, rather than doing so individually.

Right now, there is no way to actively test a patient for long COVID, but this could open the door to that development as well.