Category: Heart disease and mental health issues

– posts here focus on the often overlooked emotional impact of having a cardiac event

Welcome to your new country

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 39 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   Heart Sisters on Blue Sky

My family doctor once compared my uneasy adjustment since surviving a misdiagnosed heart attack to being like a stressful move to a foreign country.

I used to be pretty comfortable in my old country, pre-heart attack.

In my old country, I was a healthy, active, outgoing former distance runner. I had a wonderful family and a whack of close friends, a meaningful career I really loved, a crazy-cute cat, longtime community volunteer roles, a condo renovated top to bottom in a charming leafy neighbourhood of the most beautiful city in Canada – and a busy, happy, regular life.

Then on May 6, 2008, after being misdiagnosed and sent home from the Emergency Department despite textbook cardiac symptoms, I was finally admitted to the same hospital with a diagnosis of myocardial infarction – what doctors still call the “widowmaker” heart attack.

And that was the day I moved far, far away to a different country.  Continue reading “Welcome to your new country” →

“I’m not depressed!” – and other ways we deny the stigma of mental illness after a heart attack

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

“This is the most thorough review article I have seen on psychological interventions after heart events,” writes cardiac psychologist Dr. Stephen Parker* about a U.K. study on heart patients. And he should know. Dr. Steve is also a heart attack survivor himself who has explored his own profound experiences with the depression and anxiety that commonly accompany any cardiac event.

The study, reported in the British Journal of Cardiology in July 2010, followed over 400 London heart patients for two years – of whom at least half showed symptoms of anxiety or depression when first interviewed.  But the study authors described their participants in this way:

“Many of these heart patients were reluctant to accept a diagnosis of anxiety or depression and expressed reservations to the clinical psychologist by rejecting the term ‘depression’ for describing their problems, or by expressing negative views about attending a mental health service for treatment.”

In fact, these ‘negative views’ associated with the stigma of having mental health problems were so strong that all psychological interventions studied were provided to heart patients as part of a scheduled Cardiac Rehabilitation program at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London – instead of at a mental health facility.   Continue reading ““I’m not depressed!” – and other ways we deny the stigma of mental illness after a heart attack” →

Having a heart attack? Call 911 – and pack your Tetris game

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

I confess that there was a time when I was ever so slightly addicted to playing the computer puzzle game Tetris.  Like many parents, I discovered it through my children during their early teen years.  Back then, I was known to occasionally “borrow” their little Gameboy and then stay up until 2 a.m. playing “just one more game” while trying to beat my previous best score. But U.K. researchers tell us that time-wasters like Tetris or other so-called “distractor tasks” might very well help to minimize the psychological effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

We know that heart attack survivors have a disturbingly high incidence of undiagnosed PTSD.  Research reported in the British Journal of Health Psychology suggests, for example, that as many as 16% of cardiac survivors actually meet clinical criteria for acute PTSD, and a further 18% report moderate to severe PTSD symptoms.

So if distractor tasks such as playing an obsessively distracting computer puzzle game like Tetris can successfully help to treat PTSD in those affected by combat exposure, could playing Tetris also help heart attack survivors?   Continue reading “Having a heart attack? Call 911 – and pack your Tetris game” →

Learning to live with heart disease: the fourth stage of heart attack recovery

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Let’s consider today the last of The Four Stages of Heart Illness as outlined by Dr. Wayne Sotile, a cardiac psychologist from North Carolina and author of the highly recommended book called Thriving With Heart Disease.  This book is a helpful guide for both survivors and their families on “how to heal and reclaim your lives”.

One important way to do this is to review the heart patient’s journey through a series of four “separate, identifiable stages” that may help you know what to expect along this journey.  (Links to the first three stages can be found at the bottom of this post).

Stage 4:  Learning to Live With Heart Disease – Patient and family have accepted the diagnosis and committed themselves to living with the illness, not in spite of it.

Dr. Sotile reminds us that most survivors take between 6-12 months to get somewhat comfortable with their new, heart-healthy way of life (that may not mean totally comfortable, but on the way to comfortable).

But even after that first year, you won’t be completely adjusted to your new way of life. As heart disease lasts a lifetime, so does its adjustment period for both patients and their families.

It’s a big transition to your ‘new normal‘. Remember that a large part of the transition is learning to talk to the people you love and live with about what you’re going through, what you feel for one another, and what life is really about.  Continue reading “Learning to live with heart disease: the fourth stage of heart attack recovery” →