Newly-elected Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman could be released from the hospital soon after checking himself into Walter Reed General Hospital to get treatment for clinical depression last month.
A source close to Fetterman told CNN reporter Manu Raju that the senator will be “as good or better than his best days post-stroke” and could leave the hospital in the next few weeks.
John Fetterman is making progress in his recovery from clinical depression and could leave Walter Reed within next two weeks, a person close to the senator told me. The senator's physician recently informed him that he will be “as good or better than his best days post-stroke."
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 14, 2023
“John Fetterman is making progress in his recovery from clinical depression and could leave Walter Reed within next two weeks, a person close to the senator told me. The senator’s physician recently informed him that he will be ‘as good or better than his best days post-stroke,’” Raju tweeted.
According to research, roughly one in every three patients has post-stroke depression (PSD) in the year following their stroke. At least three times as many people experience depression at that rate as there are in the general population.
The National Institutes of Health also estimated that over 21 million adults in the U.S. have experienced at least one significant episode of depression in 2020. About 66 percent of them received therapy out of those.
Symptoms of depression include persistent feelings of sadness or a loss of interest in life. People who suffer from the disorder can have trouble completing common day-to-day activities, while some may have thoughts of self-harm.
Dr. Bruce Ovbiagele, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Heart Association, said that it’s “highly likely” Fetterman’s depression diagnosis is “related to the stroke.”
The Pennsylvania Democrat’s depression diagnosis comes as Fetterman, 53, continues to recover from a stroke in May of last year, which occurred just days before the primary election.
“I hadn’t been feeling well, but was so focused on the campaign that I ignored the signs and just kept going … On Friday it finally caught up with me. I had a stroke that was caused by a clot from my heart being in an A-fib rhythm for too long,” he said at the time.
And most recently, Fetterman was rushed to the hospital after feeling lightheaded during a Democratic Party retreat on Feb. 8. He was released two days later and was back in the Senate on Feb. 13.
