strengthen support for the risk of depression

More than one in two stroke victims are at risk of depression. A British publication invites all specialists to extend their vigilance for patients, well beyond the first year after a stroke.

Cardiovascular disease specialists are calling for increased psychological support for stroke patients. Details from Géraldine Zamansky, journalist at the Health Magazine on France 5.

franceinfo: A new study shows that the risk of depression is very high after a stroke?

Geraldine Zamansky: Absolutely, depression affects more than half of people who have gone through a stroke. And above all, this threat remains very strong for 5 years.

This is the latest assessment, published in the Lancetfrom the follow-up of 6641 British patients, up to 18 years after their stroke. That is to say, brain damage caused by a blocked blood vessel or hemorrhage. With variable symptoms depending on the part affected, such as a half-paralyzed face, or impaired movement, speech or vision. You have to call 15 very quickly.

But after this state of emergency, are there other symptoms that relatives and caregivers must now pay attention to?

So I reassure you, the specialists do not discover this risk, as Professor Didier Smadja, head of a unit dedicated to strokes at the South Ile-de-France Hospital Center, in the Paris suburbs, told me. Two factors of depression are then clearly identified. There may be, but it is a minority, a lesion of areas of the brain directly involved in mood.

The shock represented by the stroke and its after-effects is much more decisive. Professor Smadja explained to me that this British publication invites all specialists to extend their vigilance well beyond the first year. With the critical moment when the person stops recovering through rehabilitation, and must face their level of disability. She can collapse morally, especially if her social and emotional situation is fragile. The risk of a vicious circle for his state of health is then real.

I imagine that the level of disability is precisely proportional to the risk of depression?

Yes, in general, it is linked, as shown in 2020 by an analysis coordinated by Professor Philip Gorwood, head of department at Sainte-Anne Hospital in Paris. But these cases of severe depression in the face of a very serious handicap, shortly after the stroke, are generally well diagnosed.

For others, this psychiatrist invites patients, relatives and general practitioners to use one of the very simple screening questionnaires, accessible online. Because then there are solutions such as antidepressant medications, and behavioral and cognitive therapies for example.

Professor Gorwood insists on the importance of comprehensive care, to reduce the numerous relapses recorded by the British. We must understand that the brain has been weakened by the stroke, like a bone by a fracture, and help it to consolidate completely to better protect itself.