Post-Stroke Depression and Vascular Depression

Abstract

AbstractBoth acute stroke and silent cerebrovascular disease have been associated with depression. The corresponding diagnostic entities—post-stroke and vascular depression— have each been linked to cognitive impairment, disability, and mortality. Though the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood and may be similar, the literature to date supports two distinct constructs based on differences in clinical features, risk factors, prognosis, and treatment. Post-stroke depression more closely resembles endogenous depression, while vascular depression is associated with specific features of executive dysfunction, anhedonia with limited depressive ideation, psychomotor retardation, disability, absent family history of mood disorder, and poorer response to antidepressant treatment.