AccScience Publishing / JCBP / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/jcbp.2848
CASE REPORT

Anxiety and depression in a patient with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator for early repolarization syndrome: A case report and clinical discussion

Yue Sun1 Zhiming Yu1*
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1 Department of Cardiology, Wuxi People’s Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China
Submitted: 30 January 2024 | Accepted: 16 April 2024 | Published: 10 July 2024
© 2024 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Early repolarization syndrome (ERS) was initially thought to be a good prognostic manifestation detectable by electrocardiogram. In recent years, with the gradual deepening of research and understanding, ERS is considered to possess malignant tendency and related to ventricular fibrillation (VF) and sudden cardiac death (SCD). Implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is currently the first choice of treatment used to reduce the risk of potentially life-threatening arrhythmias and SCD in patients at high risk for ERS. The stress of living with an implanted device and receiving ICD shock has been noted to exert a psychological toll on patients, especially those who have previously experienced VF and syncope. The current case report describes symptoms and signs of a patient with ERS, and discusses the changes of psychological condition after ICD implantation. Moreover, we explored a targeted treatment approach for anxiety and depression in an individual with an ICD for ERS, which combined medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, and physical exercise. We believe that the psychological experience of ICD recipients, which is a critical component in designing the biopsychosocial therapeutic approach for this growing patient population, is worthy of more attention.

Keywords
Cardiology
Early repolarization syndrome
Implantable cardioverter defibrillator
Ventricular fibrillation
Anxiety
Depression
Funding
This work was supported by the Health Commission of Jiangsu Province (Grant: LKM2023031) and “TAIHU” talent program (Grant: 2023XSMZL-GD-YZM-2023).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Journal of Clinical and Basic Psychosomatics, Electronic ISSN: 2972-4414 Print ISSN: 3060-8562, Published by AccScience Publishing