Many of the patients we care for experience fatigue. And sometimes our patients also experience depression. How can we tell the difference between cardiac-related fatigue and depression-related fatigue?
Fatigue related to cardiac status is worse in the evenings. Fatigue due to anxiety or depression occurs all day or is worse in the morning.
So the next time your are obtaining a history from your patient with cardiac disease and she tells you she is experiencing fatigue, be sure to ask some follow-up questions to help pinpoint the cause of the fatigue. She may be showing signs of depression, which developed as a result of dealing with her new, chronic diagnosis and need medication or a referral to a specialist.
Thank you for that information. I think sometimes even patients can not tell if they are tired or depressed so looking at it this way would be very helpful.
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