Possibility

From The Optimist Magazine

Summer 2014

When it comes to avoiding heart attacks, new studies suggest the best medicine might be music, prayer, and just having someone to talk to. “Coronary heart disease is not just physical but also has a psychological component,” says Zoi Aggelopoulou, who has researched the survival of heart attack patients in her coronary care unit at the NIMTS Veterans Hospital, in Athens.

She noticed that her patients were less likely to suffer a second attack, die or return to the hospital if doctors talked to them about their treatment, let them listen to music or helped religious patients say their prayers.

After deciding to look deeper, she analyzed nine previous studies that had evaluated the benefits of psychological interventions on heart patients and discovered that the studies backed up her own observations: Psychological interventions reduced the risk of death and a second heart attack by 55 percent over a two-year period.

The research was published in the European Heart Journal Supplement in 2013. The researchers concluded that psychological interventions should be incorporated into the rehabilitation of patients with coronary heart disease. Aggelopoulou said, “More clinical trials are needed to clarify which interventions are most effective and how they can best be implemented.” | This article was previously published in the health magazine What Doctors Don’t Tell You. | Find out more: wddty.com