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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 It's not clear what can be done to help in such a situation, Mayo said, in large part because very little research has been done on apathy. "You can't fix what you can't measure," she said. "This is a first attempt to sort things out. Since no one is paying attention, it is not surprising there are no treatments for it."
Drug therapy is a vague possibility, along with behavioral therapy. "We don't have anything that has evidence-based data other than being kind and enthusiastic," Mayo said. "Were looking at clues from addiction research. There needs to be a lot of work."
The report on the physical effect of hopelessness was an offshoot of a nationwide study of cardiovascular disease in women, said study author Susan A. Everson-Rose, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota.
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She and her colleagues singled out 559 menopausal women with no history of cardiovascular disease to answer a two-item questionnaire about their expectations regarding future goals.
A previous study led by Everson-Rose, using the same questionnaire in Finnish men, found an association between hopelessness and cardiovascular disease outcome, she said, as did another study in women with documented cardiovascular disease.
This new study found a direct relationship between rising hopelessness and thickening of the lining of the carotid artery, a risk factor for stroke. Overall, women measuring higher on the hopelessness scale had .02 millimeters more thickening, equal to the amount caused by one year of aging. Women with the highest hopeless scores had an average .06 millimeters greater thickening than those with the lowest scores.
"This doesn't necessarily mean that hopelessness had a direct physical effect, since it could be operating through mechanisms we didn't measure," Everson-Rose said.
But there is a clinical message, she said: "Physicians should tell patients that emotional states can have a physical effect, and that they should seek appropriate treatment for them. Psychiatric treatment for severe depression and hopelessness is warranted."
More information
A guide to stroke recovery is offered by the National Stroke Association.
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