Heart troubles often lead to depression
‘As many as half of all people hospitalized for surgery or other procedures to treat blocked heart arteries develop depression, according to a report in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Doctors believe the depression is brought on by the mental stress of facing serious illness, or perhaps by microscopic damage done to the brain by the surgery itself. For some patients, the depression is a new thing; for others, it may have been present beforehand.
It may have played a role in the apparent suicide of a Maryland publisher and former diplomat whose body was found earlier this month after he went out sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. The family of Philip Merrill said that he had undergone heart surgery more than a year ago and had become fatigued and unmotivated.
The good news for the more than 71 million Americans suffering from some type of cardiovascular disease is that not only is depression treatable, but more than half of patients respond to initial drug treatment and 80 percent eventually respond to at least one antidepressant, research says.’
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