Sunday, November 30, 2008

Treating depression seen important in heart failure

Depression increases the risk of death in patients with heart failure, but the risk apparently disappears with antidepressant use, according to a study.

"Recent studies suggest that the use of antidepressants may be associated with increased mortality (death) in patients with cardiac disease," Dr. Christopher M. O'Connor, of Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues note in the medical journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

"Because depression has also been shown to be associated with increased mortality in these patients, it remains unclear if this association is attributable to the use of antidepressants or to depression."

The researchers therefore studied roughly 1,000 patients hospitalized for heart failure who were followed up annually. The authors prospectively collected data on depression status and use of antidepressants.

READ MORE @ REUTERS

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Ailing FDA May Need a Major Overhaul, Officials and Groups Say

The Obama administration will inherit a Food and Drug Administration widely seen as struggling to protect Americans from unsafe medication, contaminated food and a flood of questionable imports from China and other countries.

Shaken by a series of alarming failures, the FDA desperately needs an infusion of strong leadership, money, technology and personnel -- and perhaps a major restructuring, say former officials, members of Congress, watchdog groups and various government reports.

"Everywhere you go, you hear the same chorus: The agency's in trouble," said David A. Kessler, who served as FDA commissioner under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. "There's a general perception the agency is suffering mightily."

With nearly 11,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $2 billion, the FDA is charged with overseeing products that account for one-quarter of consumer spending in the United States, including over-the-counter and prescription medications, heart valves, stents and other medical devices, the blood supply, and food.

READ MORE @ WASHINGTON POST

Friday, November 28, 2008

AP IMPACT: Govt pays for risky unapproved drugs

The government is paying millions for risky medications that have never been reviewed for safety and effectiveness but are still covered under Medicaid, an Associated Press analysis of federal data has found.

Taxpayers have shelled out at least $200 million since 2004 for such drugs. Yet the Food and Drug Administration says unapproved prescription drugs are a public health problem, and some unapproved medications have been linked to dozens of deaths.

Millions of private patients are taking them as well, and their availability may create a false sense of security.

The AP analysis found that Medicaid, which serves low-income people, paid nearly $198 million from 2004 to 2007 for more than 100 unapproved drugs. Data for 2008 were not available but unapproved drugs still are being sold. The AP checked the medications against FDA databases, using agency guidelines to determine if they were unapproved. The FDA says there may be thousands of such drugs on the market.

READ MORE @ AP

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Two Antidepressants Taken During Pregnancy Linked To Heart Anomalies In Babies

Women who took the antidepressant fluoxetine during the first three months of pregnancy gave birth to four times as many babies with heart problems as women who did not and the levels were three times higher in women taking paroxetine.

Although some of the conditions were serious, others were not severe and resolved themselves without the need for medical intervention, according to a three-country study in the November issue of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

Researchers have advised women taking the drugs to continue unless they are advised to stop by their doctor or consultant. But they are being urged to give up smoking, as the study also found that more than ten cigarettes a day was associated with a five-fold increase in babies with major heart problems.

The team has also suggested that women on fluoxetine should be given a foetal echocardiogram in their second trimester to diagnose possible heart anomalies.

READ MORE @ SCIENCE DAILY

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Study Calls for Greater Scrutiny of 'Off-Label' Drug Use Doctors often prescribe medicines for conditions that haven't been studied thoroughly

It's called "off-label" prescribing, and it's the common practice of doctors prescribing a drug to treat a disease or condition that's different from the one studied by federal regulators that led to the drug's approval in the first place.

Despite the scope of the practice, there's often little evidence that using a drug for an unapproved purpose is always beneficial or safe, a new study found.

The study by American researchers has identified 14 widely prescribed medications that they think need additional study to see how effective and safe they are for off-label use. Many of the drugs are antidepressants and antipsychotics.

"Off-label prescribing is not based on the same level of evidence as on-label prescribing," said study lead researcher Surrey Walton, an assistant professor of pharmacy administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Most patients aren't aware that once a drug is approved for one use, any doctor can prescribe it for any other use, Walton explained. Doctors may turn to a drug for off-label use, because studies or evidence suggest that it might benefit a patient with a disease or condition that was not studied when U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulators approved the drug in the first place.

READ MORE @ U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Psychiatric care's peril and profits

Lapses at , ., a major hospital chain with high earnings, have put patients at risk, regulators find. Some have even died.

Psychiatric Solutions Inc. was on its way to becoming the nation's leading provider of private psychiatric care when it snapped up Sierra Vista Hospital in Sacramento in mid-2005.

The company put its well-honed business formula into action: Staffing fell. Beds filled up. Profits soared.

It was a winning strategy for investors. But for some patients, federal records show, checking into Sierra Vista proved dangerous -- at times deadly.

READ MORE @ LOS ANGELES TIMES

Monday, November 24, 2008

Psychiatrists Give Mixed Reviews on ACP Antidepressant Guideline

A practice guideline on the use of second-generation antidepressants, issued here this week by the American College of Physicians, has earned cheers as well as jeers from psychiatrists.

"I don't see anything that's at variance with the American Psychiatric Association's [current] treatment guidelines or the ones that are in process now," said Alan Gelenberg, M.D., chair of the APA's working group on depression management and clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin.

The group is now revising the APA's guidelines on the topic.

"I just applaud them for taking depression seriously," Dr. Gelenberg added.

But a past chair of the group, T. Byram Karasu, M.D., of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who was lead author of the APA's existing depression guideline, slammed the ACP effort, calling it the "worst possible practice."

The ACP's guideline was based on a review of 203 clinical trials involving selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, and other antidepressants introduced in the last 20 years.

READ MORE @ MEDPAGE TODAY

Sunday, November 23, 2008

FDA Panel Slams Rising Antipsychotic Use In Kids

After a steady stream of reports that antipsychotics are increasingly prescribed to children, often for unapproved uses, such as treating attention deficit disorders (back story), an FDA advisory committee yesterday chastised the FDA for not doing more to discourage such prescribing.

For instance, more than 389,000 youngsters last year were given Johnson & Johnson’s Risperdal, and 240,000 were 12 or younger, The New York Times writes. Often, the drug was prescribed to treat attention deficit disorders, but Risperdal is not approved for that use and its risks - weight gain, metabolic disorders and possibly permanent muscular tics - aren’t justified, panel members said.

“This committee is frustrated,” Leon Dure, a pediatric neurologist from the University of Alabama School of Medicine and panel member, told the meeting. “And we need to find a way to accommodate this concern of ours.”

However, Tom Laughren, director of the FDA’s division of psychiatry products, told the panel that the agency could do little to fix the problem and, instead, pointed the finger at medical specialty societies, which he insisted must do a better job educating doctors about side effects.

READ MORE @ PHARMALOT

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Federal Court Upholds Drug Privacy Law

A federal appeals court in Boston on Tuesday dealt a setback to the pharmaceutical industry and companies that collect prescription data for use in drug marketing.

Ruling in support of a New Hampshire law, the court upheld the right of states to prohibit the sale of doctor-specific prescription drug data that is widely used in pharmaceutical marketing.

The case is a defeat for two large data-mining companies, IMS Health and Verispan. They sued in 2006 to block implementation of the New Hampshire law, which prohibited the sale of computerized data showing which doctors were prescribing what drugs.

The law was intended to cut down on state health care costs by eliminating the tool used by drug sales representatives in promoting brand name drugs. By purchasing the data describing which doctors prescribe what drugs, pharmaceutical sales forces are better able to identify which doctors might use their products and be receptive to their sales pitches. They can also focus on persuading doctors who do not write many prescriptions for their products to change their minds.

READ MORE @ NY TIMES

Friday, November 21, 2008

Parity Law's Next Hurdle: Working Out Fine Print

Now that the country has a mental health parity law, advocates turn their attention to how it should be implemented and made as comprehensive as possible.

The extent to which the recently enacted mental health parity law (PL 110-343) will expand access to mental health care nationwide will be impacted by the reaction of insurance companies and employers to how the law is implemented and any additional costs that might arise from the benefit (see Experts Disagree Over Future of MH Care Spending).

Mental health advocates including APA, who have battled to improve insurance coverage for psychiatric illnesses since the 1970s, achieved a substantial victory when the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 was signed by President George W. Bush in October. The law requires health plans that offer mental health coverage to have the same benefits, copayments, and treatment limits as other types of health care (Psychiatric News, October 17 and November 7).

READ MORE @ PSYCHIATRIC NEWS

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

ADHD Medications Do Not Cause Genetic Damage in Children

In contrast to recent findings, two of the most common medications used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) do not appear to cause genetic damage in children who take them as prescribed, according to a new study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Duke University Medical Center.

The study published online this month in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) provides new evidence that therapeutic doses of stimulant medications, such as methylphenidate and amphetamine, do not cause cytogenetic (chromosomal) damage in humans. The researchers looked at three measures of cytogenetic damage in white blood cells of each child participating in the study and found no evidence of any changes after three months of continuous treatment.

"This is good news for parents," said Kristine L. Witt, M.Sc., a genetic toxicologist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and co-author on the study, which was funded through the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act by NIEHS and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), both parts of NIH. "Our results indicate that methylphenidate- and amphetamine-based products do not induce cytogenetic damage in children."

READ MORE @ NIH

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Use of Antipsychotics in Children Is Criticized

Powerful antipsychotic medicines are being used far too cavalierly in children, and federal drug regulators must do more to warn doctors of their substantial risks, a panel of federal drug experts said Tuesday.

More than 389,000 children and teenagers were treated last year with Risperdal, one of five popular medicines known as atypical antipsychotics. Of those patients, 240,000 were 12 or younger, according to data presented to the committee. In many cases, the drug was prescribed to treat attention deficit disorders.

But Risperdal is not approved for attention deficit problems, and its risks — which include substantial weight gain, metabolic disorders and muscular tics that can be permanent — are too profound to justify its use in treating such disorders, panel members said.

READ MORE @ NY TIMES

Monday, November 17, 2008

Medication misuse

As people live longer and suffer from more chronic diseases, the risk of inappropriately using drugs or overmedicating increases among the elderly, says Susan Zieman, geriatric cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Most elderly people are on multiple medications and frequently metabolize drugs differently from younger people, she says. The drugs may build up in their systems and interact with other drugs in unexpected ways.

READ MORE @ BALTIMORE SUN

Sunday, November 16, 2008

In a Novel Theory of Mental Disorders, Parents’ Genes Are in Competition

Two scientists, drawing on their own powers of observation and a creative reading of recent genetic findings, have published a sweeping theory of brain development that would change the way mental disorders like autism and schizophrenia are understood.

The theory emerged in part from thinking about events other than mutations that can change gene behavior. And it suggests entirely new avenues of research, which, even if they prove the theory to be flawed, are likely to provide new insights into the biology of mental disease.

At a time when the search for the genetic glitches behind brain disorders has become mired in uncertain and complex findings, the new idea provides psychiatry with perhaps its grandest working theory since Freud, and one that is grounded in work at the forefront of science. The two researchers — Bernard Crespi, a biologist at Simon Fraser University in Canada, and Christopher Badcock, a sociologist at the London School of Economics, who are both outsiders to the field of behavior genetics — have spelled out their theory in a series of recent journal articles.

READ MORE @ NY TIMES

Saturday, November 15, 2008

SEROQUEL XR™ And SEROQUEL(R) Approved In Europe For New Indications For The Treatment Of Bipolar Disorder

AstraZeneca today announced that the once-daily formulation SEROQUEL XR™ (quetiapine fumarate extended release tablets) and SEROQUEL® (quetiapine fumarate) have been approved via the Mutual Recognition Procedure for new indications in bipolar disorder. SEROQUEL XR and SEROQUEL have been approved for treatment of major depressive episodes in bipolar disorder. Additionally, SEROQUEL XR has been approved for treatment of moderate to severe manic episodes in bipolar disorder.

This follows the October 2008 approval of SEROQUEL XR in similar indications by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As a result of these new indications for adult patients, SEROQUEL (both formulations) is currently the only atypical antipsychotic approved to treat the spectrum of mood episodes associated with bipolar disorder and the only licensed treatment for bipolar depression in the EU. The mechanism of action of SEROQUEL, which involves both antipsychotic and antidepressant activities, may help explain its unique efficacy across the spectrum of mood episodes associated with bipolar disorder.

READ MORE @ MEDICAL NEWS TODAY

Friday, November 14, 2008

Watch for depression in the elderly - Know the signs, step in if necessary

Experts are quick to say that depression isn't a normal part of aging, nor is it a sign of weakness.

But older family members who suffer from the condition may need your help to overcome those misconceptions and get treatment.

"In the elderly community, there is a lot of stigma still about depression and anxiety," said Dr. Greg Jicha, a neurologist at the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging. "People are very hesitant to seek out any kind of help for these sorts of things."

Jicha believes it's important for relatives to be alert to signs of depression in older people to help restore joy in their lives and keep them from entering nursing homes too early. He recommends raising a red flag with primary care physicians, who may otherwise miss the signs.

READ MORE @ LOUISVILLE COURIER-JOURNAL

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Large Pharma Cos Shift Focus To Research, From Cost Cuts

Pharmaceutical executives, faced with generic competition and other challenges, have shifted their primary focus from cost-cutting campaigns to reinvigorating research efforts, a new survey suggests.

Some 66% of industry executives said reinvigorating research-and-development was their top strategic initiative, while 40% said "optimizing costs" was the top priority, according to the survey released Wednesday.

That's a shift from last year, when a survey by E&Y together with The Economist found that 92% of executives ranked cost reduction as their number one initiative. "Large pharmaceutical companies have been intensely focused on costs for the last two years and are moving beyond short-term reductions to longer- term strategic cost management," the new report said.

READ MORE @ CNN MONEY

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Drugged-out seniors a prescription for disaster

They are the drugged-out generation, and they're not who you think they are.

They're 80. And 85 and 90 and 95 – overmedicated seniors clogging emergency departments, blocking hospital beds and sicker than they have any reason to be.

The Number 1 drug users in North America, outside of patients in long-term care facilities, are women over the age of 65. Twelve per cent are on 10 or more meds, sometimes up to 20 or more drugs; 23 per cent take at least five drugs. In long-term care, seniors are on six to eight medications, on average. Fifteen per cent of seniors admitted to hospital are suffering drug side effects. It's not uncommon to find seniors dizzy and dotty from being prescribed so many drugs.

"You'd fall down, too, if you were on so many drugs," says Dr. William Dalziel, a prominent Ottawa geriatrician.

Typically, overmedicated seniors have been seen by numerous specialists who have prescribed various medications to treat a host of chronic ailments – high blood pressure, hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease, cancer – but there hasn't been any oversight by a geriatrician skilled in looking at the big picture and assessing contra-indications and side effects. Ask any doctor with expertise in seniors what their top health concerns are and they all cite overmedication.

read more @ THE TORONTO STAR

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Antipsychotics Aren't Anti-Depressants

I saw the Abilify for depression TV ad again over the weekend and I continue to be concerned about how Bristol-Myers Squibb is very craftily making the drug, an atypical antipsychotic, sound as if it's an anti-depressant. Nowhere in the TV is it mentioned that the drug is an antipsychotic, at least not in what I've caught on-air.

I've written about the ad previously here and have also written about how the drug's clinical trials for depression show a greater chance for a patient to experience akathisia than to have his or her depression improved.

READ MORE @ FURIOUS SEASONS

Monday, November 10, 2008

Antidepressant treatment may reduce male fertility

Treatment with paroxetine (Paxil), which belongs to the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class of antidepressant drugs, increases DNA fragmentation in sperm, according to research presented today at the 64th annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in San Francisco.

Although the study did not directly evaluate male fertility, the five-fold increase in the number of men who developed abnormal sperm DNA while being treated with paroxetine is "troubling" and "suggests an adverse effect on fertility," co-investigator Dr. Cigdem Tanrikut, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, told Reuters Health.

In a clinical trial she described as "the first study to assess the impact of an SSRI on semen parameters in healthy men," 35 men took paroxetine for 5 weeks. The drug was administered in once-daily doses of 10 mg the first week, 20 mg in the second week, 30 mg the third and fourth week, and 20 mg in the fifth week.

READ MORE @ REUTERS UK

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Increased Bipolar Risk Linked to Father's Age

Older men are more likely than younger men to father children with autism, schizophrenia, or early-onset bipolar disorder.

Fathering a child later in life seems to increase its risk of having autism or schizophrenia, research has shown. And now it seems to increase a child's risk of having bipolar disorder as well, a new study suggests.

The study was headed by Emma Frans, a doctoral student in epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Results were published in the September Archives of General Psychiatry.

Sweden's Multigeneration Register, as well as Sweden's National Hospital Discharge Register, made this new investigation possible. The former, which has been in existence since 1947, gives demographic information about all people living in Sweden as well as about their parents. The latter, which has been in existence since 1973, lists all people living in Sweden who have been hospitalized for various conditions.

READ MORE @ PSYCHIATRIC NEWS

Saturday, November 8, 2008

US general bucks military silence on mental health

It takes a brave soldier to do what Army Maj. Gen. David Blackledge did in Iraq.

It takes as much bravery to do what he did when he got home.

Blackledge got psychiatric counseling to deal with wartime trauma, and now is defying the military's culture of silence on the subject of mental health problems and treatment.

"It's part of our profession. ... Nobody wants to admit that they've got a weakness in this area," Blackledge said about mental health problems among troops who return from America's two wars.

"I have dealt with it. I'm dealing with it now," said Blackledge, who came home with post-traumatic stress. "We need to be able to talk about it."

As the United States marks another Veterans Day on Tuesday, thousands of troops continue coming home with anxiety, depression and other emotional problems.

Up to 20 percent of the more than 1.7 million who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated to have symptoms. In a sign of how tough it may be to change attitudes, roughly half those who need help are not seeking it, studies have found.

READ MORE @ INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

Friday, November 7, 2008

Many more children on medication, study says - 'Surprising' rise targets diabetes, other obesity-related diseases

Hundreds of thousands more children are taking medications for chronic diseases, with a huge spike over a four-year period in the number given drugs to treat conditions once seen primarily in adults and now linked to what has become an epidemic of childhood obesity.

In a study appearing today in the journal Pediatrics, researchers saw surges in the number of U.S. children taking prescription medicines for diabetes and asthma, with smaller increases in those taking drugs for high blood pressure or high cholesterol. All of those conditions, to varying degrees, have been associated with obesity.

Though doctors have been seeing the trend in their practices, "the rate of rise is what's surprising," said Dr. Donna R. Halloran, a pediatrician at St. Louis University in Missouri and one of the study's authors.

The study found a doubling in the number of children taking medication for type 2 diabetes, with the largest increases seen among pre-teen and teenage girls. The number of asthma prescriptions was up nearly 47 percent.

READ MORE @ BALTIMORE SUN

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Kidney Transplantation Can Improve Mental Performance, Study Finds

Individuals with kidney disease often suffer from cognitive impairment, but kidney transplantation can improve their mental performance, according to a paper being presented at the American Society of Nephrology's 41st Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

While researchers and clinicians consider cognitive decline to be a common occurrence in patients with chronic kidney disease, it is unclear if this impairment is due to patients' advanced age, their chronic health conditions, or potential treatment-related factors. In addition, the effects of surgery and immunosuppressant medications on memory and overall cognitive performance have been poorly studied, but previous research suggests that kidney transplantation may have a beneficial effect on patients' mental function.

READ MORE @ SCIENCE DAILY

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Most kids get no therapy with antidepressants

At least half of U.S. children taking antidepressants aren't in therapy, suggests a large study, and that delays recovery while greatly increasing the number of kids on the medication who are suicidal.


"Therapy with antidepressants is the standard of care. But is it what's going on in the real world? No," says Sheila Marcus, child and adolescent psychiatry chief at the University of Michigan Medical School.

The report tracks insurance claims for antidepressants from a database of 6.8 million children and teens from 2002 to 2006. The analysis was done by Thomson Reuters, a research firm that helps companies evaluate health care.

READ MORE @ ELMIRA STAR GAZETTE

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Johnson & Johnson Psychiatric Gifts Probed by Senate (Update2)

Johnson & Johnson, the world's largest health-care company, said a U.S. Senate committee probing payments to doctors by drug and medical-device makers has asked about company support of psychiatric professional groups.

J&J, of New Brunswick, New Jersey, is responding to the request, received Oct. 23 from the Senate Committee on Finance, the company said today in a regulatory filing. The letter asks about ``any payments or benefits to a number of specified psychiatrists associated with psychiatric professional associations or otherwise authorities in their field.''

Committee members Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, sent a similar request Oct. 16 to J&J, Medtronic Inc. and Abbott Laboratories about support for a medical-device conference. Grassley has also said he is probing payments by AstraZeneca Plc and Eli Lilly & Co. to psychiatrists and disclosures by Stanford University professor Alan Schatzberg, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association.

READ MORE @ BLOOMBERG

Monday, November 3, 2008

Fears over new drug orders for mental health patients - Powers to administer compulsory treatment come into force today

Campaigners have expressed concern about the potential misuse of new powers for the compulsory treatment of people with mental illness that come into force in England today.

Under changes to mental health legislation, some patients discharged from hospital may be placed under a community treatment order (CTO) that forces them to take their medication – even where they may have damaging side-effects and be of limited use.

The changes are designed to help so-called "revolving door" patients, those stuck in a cycle where they stop taking their medication and become so unwell that they require hospital admission.

Now where a patient refuses to take medication, they can be held and treated in hospital for 72 hours. If they still refuse, the CTO is revoked and they become a detained patient again.

READ MORE @ THE GUARDIAN

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Wyeth latest drugmaker to narrow focus of research

Like many of the top pharmaceutical companies, Wyeth is narrowing its research focus to far fewer diseases as it tries to produce more successful new drugs, particularly for conditions lacking good treatments.

Wyeth is even ending research in its signature areas in women's health - contraceptives and menopause treatments - and switching to other female health problems with an unmet need, such as ovarian cancer and lupus.

The Madison, N.J.-based company is scaling back from doing research in its current 14 therapeutic areas to just six, Dr. Evan Loh, a Wyeth vice president, said Wednesday. Instead of doing research on a total of 55 diseases, it now will work on 27.

READ MORE @ SEATTLE POST INTELLIGENCER

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Heart Patients Should Be Screened, Treated for Depression

Studies show that depression is about three times more common in patients following a heart attack than in the general community. Heart patients should be screened for depression, and treated if necessary. Heart patients should be screened for depression - a common condition that can profoundly affect both prognosis and quality of life -according to the American Heart Association's first scientific statement on depression and coronary heart disease. The statement was published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The recommendations, which are endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association, include:

-early and repeated screening for depression in heart patients;
the use of two questions to screen patients -if depression is suspected the remaining questions are asked ( 9 questions total );
coordinated follow-up for both heart disease and depressive symptoms in patients who have both.

“The statement was prompted by the growing body of evidence that shows a link between depression in cardiac patients and a poorer long-term outlook,” said Erika Froelicher, R.N., M.A., M.P.H., Ph.D., a professor at the University of California San Francisco, School of Nursing and Medicine and co-chair of the writing group. Dale Briggs, who experienced depression after his heart valve surgery, said the statement is welcome news. “I think it’s long overdue. It is unfortunate that some patients aren’t warned of the possibility of some depression after surgery,” he said.

READ MORE @ MEDIA NEWSWIRE