Post-Stroke Depression; Relationship to Functional Impairment and Rehabilitation Outcome
2 Baskent Üniversitesi, Fiziksel Tıp ve Rehabilitasyon Anabilim Dalı, Ankara, Türkiye
3 Başkent Üniversitesi Alanya Uygulama ve Araştırma Hastanesi, Fizik Tedavi ve Rehabilitasyon Kliniği, Antalya
Objective: Post stroke depression remains a frequent sequela of stroke. This study examined the phenomenon of post-stroke depression and evaluated its impact on rehabilitation outcome.
Materials and Methods: In this study, eighty patients with stroke were analyzed prospectively. Patients who had new onset unilateral hemispheric stroke were included into the study. Depressive symptoms were assessed by using Wakefield depression scale at admission. The Functional Independent Measure (FIM) served as an indication of functional outcome and Brunnstrom stage for motor development at admission and discharge along with other demographic information.
Results: Subjects ranged in age from thirty-five to eighty-one (mean:62±10.4 years). Depression was observed in thirty-four patients (42.5%). There was no correlation between incidence of depression and sex, age, intellectual status, hypertension, diabetes mellitus (p>0.05). The patients were studied in two groups as; patients with and without depression. There was no difference between two groups for FIM and Brunnstrom stage scores (p>0.05). However, when the patients were evaluated with Wakefield depression scale it was seen that, as the depression grade increased, FIM score decreased (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Post-stroke depression is seen frequently. It has been suggested that depression causes a negative impact on rehabilitation outcome. In this study, we found no negative impact. This may be due to clinical and demographic characteristics of our study group.
Keywords : Stroke, depression, functional impairment