{"id":3820,"date":"2011-02-10T09:56:11","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T14:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=3820"},"modified":"2025-06-04T08:24:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T13:24:59","slug":"cardiac-depression-marc-gillinov-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2011\/02\/10\/cardiac-depression-marc-gillinov-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Gillinov&#8217;s Video Blog: &#8220;How Can Patients Identify, Prevent And Treat Cardiac Depression?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since writing my book and launching this website, I have been very fortunate to meet some amazing people. One such person is Dr. Marc Gillinov of the Cleveland Clinic. Not only is Dr. Gillinov an incredible surgeon but he is a patient advocate and a proactive supporter of our community.<\/p>\n<p>That said, I was thrilled to interview Dr. Gillinov about the important &#8212; but sometimes overlooked &#8212; topic of cardiac depression. As I personally experienced, cardiac depression can be an unexpected and unnecessary pitfall during the recovery from heart valve surgery.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qGVGfjLVBhQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>To learn more about Dr. Gillinov and read several patient testimonials for Dr. Gillinov, please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Marc-Gillinov-Cleveland-Ohio.php\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Related Links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2018\/02\/11\/cardiac-depression\/\">Cardiac Depression: What Should Patients Know?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/pumphead\/\">Pumphead: Important Facts for Patients<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2016\/02\/24\/patient-mind\/\">The Patient Mind: Before, During &amp; After Heart Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. To help those patients and caregivers who are hearing impaired, I have provided a video transcript below:<\/p>\n<p>Adam:\u00a0 Hi, everybody.\u00a0 It\u2019s Adam and I\u2019m here at STS in San Diego with Doctor Marc Gillinov and, as you know, we\u2019re answering your questions that you posted on my blog and we have a very important question, I think, because I experience it related to cardiac depression and the question for Dr. Gillinov that came in was about what from a surgeon\u2019s perspective would you use to identify somebody experiencing cardiac depression and then what would you suggest to the patient and their caregivers to treat that problem.<\/p>\n<p>Marc Gillinov, MD:\u00a0 That\u2019s an important question because if you fix somebody\u2019s cardiac problem but they feel bad for other reasons, for example they\u2019re severely depressed, that\u2019s not a victory. The first thing to know <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2007\/08\/02\/heart-surgery-and-depression-cardiac-depression\/\">about cardiac depression<\/a> is that it is not normal.\u00a0 Some people might say, \u201cWell, of course you\u2019re depressed.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got heart problems.\u00a0 You had heart surgery.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry.\u00a0 It will go away.\u201d\u00a0 Hogwash.\u00a0 It\u2019s not normal.\u00a0 You\u2019re not supposed to be depressed but 20 to 25 percent of heart patients, whether it was surgery, angioplasty, heart valve surgery, or even medicines get depressed. How do you know if you\u2019re depressed?\u00a0 If you are feeling lack of energy, lack of interest, you just don\u2019t want to do anything, things that interested you before &#8212; from before just don\u2019t even make you get off the couch, you might be depressed.\u00a0 In addition, if you\u2019re really depressed and you\u2019re having thoughts about harming yourself, then you\u2019re for sure depressed.\u00a0 One of the problems is a lot of people don\u2019t recognize it themselves.\u00a0 They might think, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t feel so well.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have much energy because I\u2019ve got something going on with my heart.\u201d\u00a0 Therefore, it\u2019s really important for the family to help out.\u00a0 Your husband, your wife, your brother, your sister, your kids, they might pick it up.\u00a0 And before your heart surgery or soon after you\u2019ve had heart issues, have this discussion with your doctors.\u00a0 Ask, &#8220;Is depression a possibility here?\u00a0 Should I be on the lookout for it?&#8221;\u00a0 And have someone in the family present for that, too, because, again, you might miss it.\u00a0 And then, what if you get depressed?\u00a0 What if you have this lack of interest, lack of energy, feeling down?\u00a0 Don\u2019t take the common advice which is &#8220;Don\u2019t worry.\u00a0 It\u2019ll go away.&#8221;\u00a0 Do nothing.\u00a0 You need to do something.\u00a0 What can you do for it?\u00a0 Exercise.\u00a0 I know it\u2019s tough to get up, especially if you\u2019ve just had heart surgery, but exercise is one of the single biggest things.\u00a0 In addition, if you have cardiac issues or you\u2019re a cardiac patient or you\u2019ve had heart surgery, definitely do cardiac rehab. I know.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read about this in your blog.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Marc Gillinov:\u00a0 And how much it helped you.\u00a0 It helps everyone.\u00a0 Being around other people, learning about their experiences, realizing you\u2019re not alone, again exercising, those things can help prevent depression and it can help treat it.\u00a0 And finally, if you\u2019re still feeling down and you\u2019re still feeling bad, see a psychologist because medical condition or a psychiatrist.\u00a0 There are medicines to treat it, but I think the most important thing is recognizing it happened.\u00a0 Don\u2019t ignore it and fix it if it occurs.\u00a0 We all know it\u2019s out there.\u00a0 Fix it.\u00a0 You don\u2019t need to be depressed.<\/p>\n<p>Adam:\u00a0 Great.\u00a0 Well, I just want to thank you for taking the time\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Gillinov:\u00a0 Oh, I\u2019m into this.<\/p>\n<p>Adam:\u00a0 As you know this &#8212; I experienced cardiac depression so hearing you talk about it, I\u2019m sure it\u2019s not only educational for me but for all the patients and their caregivers out there, this is something that should definitely be tracked as the patient is recovering from not just heart valve surgery but any type of procedure, so thanks again.\u00a0 This is Dr. Marc Gillinov from the Cleveland Clinic.\u00a0 You can learn more about him and his specialties at HeartValveSurgeons.com.\u00a0 Thanks so much.<\/p>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-surgeons-clinics"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3820"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41689,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820\/revisions\/41689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}