MURRAY — Claudia Downs helps her husband John relearn simple tasks like folding laundry.

"They didn't know if he was going to make it," Claudia Downs said. An illness kept him on a ventilator in the intensive care unit for weeks. "It was a mad scramble all the time to keep everything going," she said.

Managing everything fell to her. "I started having panic attacks," she said.

New research by Intermountain Healthcare finds family members of patients in ICU have anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress lasting months. It's the first study of its kind to investigate the link between cortisol levels of family members of adult ICU patients and anxiety.

Knowing which family members are likely to suffer long-term effects could help caregivers offer guidance on how to help them.

"The whole idea is really to bring the medical system and the family into the engaging process of promoting families and patients to be well," said Dr. Ellie Hirshberg of Intermountain Medical Center.

Learn more about stress:

Why stress is life-threatening and what you can do about it

There's an illness seemingly on the rise that's causing debilitating symptoms. Like headaches, high blood pressure and depression. It's chronic stress and it could be life-threatening.

Researchers measured stress levels through heart rate and the stress hormone cortisol. They found most family members are in denial about how stressful it is.

"Most of the time, they're focused on their loved one, and they're not really focused on themselves, and so they're sort of saying, 'I'm OK, I'm OK, I'm OK,'" Hirshberg said.

Experts say communicating with your loved one's medical team and advocating for yourself is key. Doctors say the best thing you can do to help your loved one recover is to also take care of yourself.

Claudia Downs said medication helped, along with support groups. Intermountain Healthcare offers family support groups twice a month within the ICU.

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