Caretaker Stress Affects Health of Partner with Heart Failure

From an article by Nicole Stodard in EmpowerHer

A recent study that appears in the July/August 2009 issue of Heart and Lung affirms in a broad sense what anyone in a committed relationship, particularly a marriage, already knows from experience: one spouse’s mental or physical health ailments can, and often do, tax the other spouse.

This study is particularly concerned with the implications of this dynamic when one spouse has some form of heart failure (HF), a chronic progressive condition that occurs when the heart muscle can’t pump enough blood through the heart to meet the body’s blood and oxygen demand.

The study found that a spouse’s distress had substantially greater impact on the HF patient’s overall health and the course of the patient’s illness than the reverse scenario. Considering the fact that 5.7 million Americans have HF and well over half a million new cases are diagnosed each year, this is concerning.