As Dr. Edmondson acknowledged, people experiencing heart attacks have multiple sources of stress, from fear of death to financial worries. But he and his colleagues also have measured the impact of the hospital environment itself. They compared patients (average age: 63) who came to the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital emergency room when it was crowded and chaotic (median time in a crowded ER: 11 hours) to those who arrived when it was calmer.

“The more crowded it is when you come in, the more PTSD symptoms you’ll have a month later,” he concluded.

Now the Columbia researchers are following 1,000 E.R. patients with heart attacks, tracking their weight and stress levels and giving each a wearable device to measure physical activity and sleep. The results may help substantiate the effects of post-hospital syndrome.

“We’ve gotten better and better at treating disorders, but we haven’t gotten to the point where we avoid some of the collateral damage to the patient,” Dr. Edmondson said.

Making hospitals less destabilizing, more conducive to healing, seems an achievable goal. Hospitals do it for children, Dr. Krumholz has pointed out.

They could enable older patients, too, to wear their own clothes, get out of bed for walks (even with IV poles), eat enough to maintain their weight. They could assess how many lab tests patients actually need, and whether blood needs to be drawn before dawn.

“We should never wake a sleeping patient unless there’s a compelling reason, and that reason shouldn’t be our own convenience,” Dr. Krumholz said.