PTSD found in heart attack victims, a new study says

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been found in heart attack sufferers.

Researchers at the Columbia University Medical Center found that heart attack victims have a one in eight chance of suffering post traumatic stress symptoms.

According to the New York Times, acquiring PTSD even increases the chances of having further heart attacks.

“About 1.4 million people [in the United States] have heart attacks every year; that’s as many people as are in our entire active military,” said study author Donald Edmondson, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

“That feeling that your life is in danger—the loss of control when your body turns on you—is something that these people have a hard time forgetting.”

WebMd said that researchers analyzed 24 studies looking at PTSD and acute coronary syndromes (ACS).

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The studies contained over 2000 patients and researchers found that 12 percent of those participants either developed PTSD, reported ABC News, or developed symptoms of the disorder.

They also looked at studies that lasted several years and found that patients were twice as likely to have another heart event within two years of the first.

The symptoms of PTSD, include stress, anxiety, nightmares, flashbacks and panic attacks.

“We know where the vast majority of these traumas are going to take place, and that’s in emergency departments where heart patients show up,” Edmondson said to the New York Times.

“We are interested now in trying to determine whether there are ways to alter that environment to decrease perceptions of life threat and lack of control so we can reduce the incidence of PTSD in the first place.”