Heart Patients More Likely To Be Depressed, Need To Be Screened

Washington (dbTechno) – According to a new recommendation by the American Heart Association, heart patients need to be regularly screened for signs of depression.

The new recommendations have been published in the journal Circulation, and focus on the prevalence of depression in heart patients.

What the report confirmed was that in heart attack survivors, depression as three times more common, compared to those who did not suffer a heart attack.

The report detailed how heart patients were at a much higher risk of developing depression.

Though there is no evidence that shows that heart patients who are screened for depression do better in the long run, it could lead to an improved quality of life.

Studies have shown that around 20% of all heart attack patients who are in the hospital, have all of the signs for major depression overall.

The fear is that if a heart patient is depressed, they may not treat themselves correctly, meaning they may skip exercise, medicine, etc.

This push is to try to make depression screenings just as common as blood pressure and cholesterol tests.

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