Post-stroke depression, not to be underestimated

Abstract

Depression occurs in almost half of stroke survivors, 1 Kotila M Numminen H Waltimo O Kaste M Depression after stroke: results of the FINNSTROKE Study. Stroke. 1998; 2: 368-372 Crossref Scopus (330) Google Scholar yet H Palomäki and colleagues 2 Palomäki H Kaste M Berg A et al. Prevention of poststroke depression: 1 year randomised placebo controlled double blind trial of mianserin with 6 month follow up after therapy. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1999; 66: 490-494 Crossref PubMed Scopus (105) Google Scholar found that the disorder was neither common nor responsive to mianserin treatment in their trial among 100 consecutive patients with ischaemic stroke. They found that, according to DSM-IIIR criteria, major depression was present in 6% at the initial stage, 11% at 1 year, and 18% at 18 months. Mianserin, a tetracylic antidepressant, had no effect on depression or functional outcome as measured by the Rankin scale or the Barthel index. DEPARTMENT OF ERRORCan growth hormone therapy cause diabetes?—In this Correspondence letter by J P Monson and colleagues (May 13, p 1728), the third sentence of the third paragraph should be, “His warnings about the placebo effect of GH replacement (his use of the word tainted is rather curious) on improved wellbeing are overstated, particularly in view of the continued improvement in wellbeing, which is observed between 6 months and 12 months of treatment.5” Also, reference 3 should not be cited in the first paragraph. Full-Text PDF