Depression Often Follows Heart Attack

One in five patients hospitalized for a heart attack experiences a major depression, according to a new study.

These depressed patients are 50% more likely than other heart attack patients to need hospital care for a heart problem within a year and are three times more likely to die from a future heart attack or other heart-related condition.

"Although there is not much time to do a full psychiatric assessment of heart attack patients in the hospital, it is important to evaluate for depression because of the impact on the patient's quality of life and future medical health,” noted study co-lead author and cardiologist, David Bush, M.D., associate professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart Institute (Baltimore, MD, USA).

Since the average patient is recuperating and ready to leave the hospital after 72 hours and depression symptoms develop much later, it is difficult to distinguish those patients who are most likely to become depressed. According to co-lead study author Roy Ziegelstein, M.D., a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins, depression after heart attack is a complex interaction of neural hormones, biologic changes, and sensory perceptions that medicine has only begun to study.

"It is far more complex an issue that just being sad or feeling blue for a short period. What we're talking about here is a serious illness,” explained Dr. Ziegelstein.




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