A new study from Italy reveals that for some COVID-19 patients, the symptoms of the disease can last for months.

The study of 143 recovered patients who had been hospitalized showed that after 60 days from the onset of their first symptoms, only 18, or 12.6%, were completely symptom-free.

According to Newsweek, 85.4% of those who had recovered and then tested negative for the disease still had one or more lingering symptom from their illness. Fatigue was the most common complaint, followed by difficulty breathing, joint pain, and chest pain. Almost half of the study subjects said their quality of life had been diminished by COVID-19.

The study, published in the journal JAMA, said that over 72% of the subjects experienced pneumonia during their initial diagnosis and that the average hospital stay for these patients was 13.5 days.

Dr. Christopher Babiuch of the Cleveland Clinic said: "We're now seeing a percentage of patients whose symptoms seem to be lasting a while. This is challenging because everyone's needs are so unique. We're finding that collaborating as a team between different specialists helps to manage and support these patents, but there's lot we just don't know yet."

Experts refer to these patients as "long-haulers," people who suffer COVID-19 symptoms over a prolonged period of time. Babiuch said that both young, healthy people and older folks can fall into this category.

He admits that many of these people may have underlying chronic conditions but that it's still too early to tell why their symptoms last for so long.

"Our experience shows that most long-haulers tend to fall into the high-risk category, but there's also a growing percentage of people who were otherwise healthy before they became infected," he told Newsweek. "From what we know so far, it still seems random as to who experiences those long-haul symptoms and who doesn't."

One long-hauler, Fiona Lowenstein, created a support group for people struggling with the disease.

"My recovery from the disease dragged on for more than seven weeks," she told Vox. "In the absence of public health information, I connected with other COVID-19 survivors and started the Body Politic COVID-19 support group for people living with the virus.

"Today, my support group is one of many attempting to meet the needs of people living with the coronavirus."