BUFFALO, N.Y. — With the COVID-19 pandemic in the rearview, doctors are now focusing their attention on learning more about long COVID.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 70 million adults in the United States report having a disability, and that population is more likely to face long COVID than those without a disability.

“We definitely do see a good number of people who have chronic issues who get even worse with long COVID,” said Dr. Jennifer Abeles, assistant clinical professor and co-director at the Long COVID Recovery Center at the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “But we also see people who never had any medical problems suffer from long COVID.”

Impacted disabilities include those impairing mobility, cognition, independent living, hearing, vision and self-care, according to CDC data. 

Dr. Abeles said long COVID’s prevalence and treatment remain a mystery, and the effort to understand it goes beyond the University at Buffalo.

“We have people all over the world doing research from a lot of different vantage points, looking at the patients, looking at their bloodwork, looking at their symptoms, looking at their history, looking at the vaccinations, how all of these things come to play and tease out what is the cause of long COVID, and then how do we effectively manage these patients so that they can get back to a productive life?”

She said treating patients with chronic illnesses or disabilities takes physicians with a willingness to adapt, learn and understand the individual.

“If you have somebody who's wheelchair dependent, you have to have the ability to get into the building to receive the treatment that everybody else gets,” said Abeles. “If you have somebody with a cognitive issue, then you have to provide that information in a form that they can understand and get the same treatment. It’s all about adjusting.” 

The Long COVID Recovery Center at UB is grant-funded so patients do not need to worry about affording care. To make an appointment, call 716-323-0674.