Screening for post-stroke depression in a Brazilian stroke center

Background: Depression is the most common psychiatric complication in stroke patients. Its impact is relevant and implies greater functional impairment, delays in the rehabilitation process and recurrence of cardiovascular events. Objectives: To investigate the prevalence of depression and its association with other comorbidities in post-stroke patients. Design and setting: A cross-sectional, observational study conducted at a specialized outpatient clinic in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Methods: The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), a 9-item summed scale, with scores ranging from 0 (no depressive symptoms) to 27 (all symptoms occurring daily), was applied to 134 stroke survivors between September 2019 and February 2020. Demographic and clinical data were obtained using the same structured questionnaire by neurologists. Results: Moderate to severe depression (PHQ-9 ≥10) was present in 40 (29.9%) patients, of whom 55% were female, 70% were overweight or obese (BMI ≥25) and only 27.5% were over 60 years. 80% of patients had some comorbidity: systemic arterial hypertension in 57.5%, diabetes in 32.5%, cardiac arrhythmias in 22.5% and history of heart attack in 5%. Current and past tobacco smoking was found in 67.5% of patients and half of them were current smokers. Conclusions: The prevalence of depression among stroke patients was high in our study and mostly associated with other comorbidities. Our data show the need to actively search for symptoms related to this condition, aiming for early diagnosis and appropriate treatment.

Poststroke depression

Psychiatric symptoms are the complications most often ignored in patients who suffered a stroke. Depression is the most common psychiatric complication in post-stroke patients with a prevalence of about 20–50% in the first year and with a peak in first six months after the stroke. Depression in turn, constitutes itself a factor of cerebrovascular risk. Despite its high prevalence this disorder remains under diagnosed and under treated. One explanation for this fact is that depressive symptoms are often misinterpreted as consequences of stroke itself. This reality is even more striking in patients with aphasia. Poststroke depression (PSD) results from the interaction between biological, as the location of the stroke, social and psychological factors. The presence of this disorder is associated with deleterious consequences for rehabilitation process. These patients suffer more often from attention deficits, cognitive difficulties, lower response to rehabilitation programs, poor quality of life and increased mortality.ObjectivesTo review epidemiology, pathogenesis, risk factors, consequences and current recommendations for therapeutic intervention.MethodsMedline/Pubmed database search using the terms poststroke depression, depression and stroke, depression and cerebral vascular accident, stroke patients, published in the last 16 years.ConclusionThe treatment of PSD has been shown effective in improving the evolution and prognosis of these patients, therefore it is very important early diagnosis.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

A Thematic Analysis of the Medical Practitioners ’Reaction towards Patients’ Explanation in Notifying their Health Condition in Malaysia3

Effective interpersonal communication between patients and the medical practitioners has always been the medium for information exchange between both parties. This qualitative research is conducted to determine how the medical practitioners react to the patients’ complaints in any given medical interaction settings. The data for the entire research were obtained through in-depth interviews, conducted with six informants. The purposive sampling method was utilized to determine the appropriate informants to be chosen with the traits of a psychiatric patient diagnosed with any psychiatric complication. The data were analysed by deriving themes from the in-depth interviews using thematic analysis method. The data acquired from the informants have contributed to a few themes which have indicated the medical practitioners’ reaction to the patients’ complaints. Based on the findings, the researcher has concluded that the medical practitioners involved in treating the informants were not responsive enough to the patients’ complaint.

Plasma-based proteomics reveals lipid metabolic and immunoregulatory dysregulation in post-stroke depression

Background:Post-stroke depression (PSD) is the most common psychiatric complication facing stroke survivors and has been associated with increased distress, physical disability, poor rehabilitation, and suicidal ideation. However, the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying PSD remain unknown, and no objective laboratory-based test is available to aid PSD diagnosis or monitor progression.Methods:Here, an isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ)-based quantitative proteomic approach was performed to identify differentially expressed proteins in plasma samples obtained from PSD, stroke, and healthy control subjects.Results:The significantly differentiated proteins were primarily involved in lipid metabolism and immunoregulation. Six proteins associated with these processes – apolipoprotein A-IV (ApoA-IV), apolipoprotein C-II (ApoC-II), C-reactive protein (CRP), gelsolin, haptoglobin, and leucine-rich alpha-2-glycoprotein (LRG) – were selected for Western blotting validation. ApoA-IV expression was significantly upregulated in PSD as compared to stroke subjects. ApoC-II, LRG, and CRP expression were significantly downregulated in both PSD and HC subjects relative to stroke subjects. Gelsolin and haptoglobin expression were significantly dysregulated across all three groups with the following expression profiles: gelsolin, healthy control > PSD > stroke subjects; haptoglobin, stroke > PSD > healthy control.Conclusions:Early perturbation of lipid metabolism and immunoregulation may be involved in the pathophysiology of PSD. The combination of increased gelsolin levels accompanied by decreased haptoglobin levels shows promise as a plasma-based diagnostic biomarker panel for detecting increased PSD risk in post-stroke patients.

Characteristics, interventions, and outcomes of misdiagnosed delirium in cancer patients

Objective:Although delirium is a common psychiatric complication in cancer patients, it is often not accurately recognized. To date, the characteristics and outcome of misrecognized patients are unclear in the cancer setting. This retrospective study was planned to determine the recognition by oncologists at the psychiatric consultation, characteristics, reversibility and outcome of misrecognized patients with delirium.Method:We reviewed charts of 60 patients diagnosed with delirium by the psycho-oncologists who were referred to the psychiatric consultation by the oncologists. Information about demographics, initial assessment by the oncologists, delirium subtype, precipitating factors, intervention for delirium, reversibility, and final status was obtained.Results:Twenty-two among 60 delirious patients were misrecognized by the oncologists at the time of consultation. They were often diagnosed as having anxiety or other psychiatric disorders. Misrecognized participants were significantly younger than accurately recognized cases of delirium. The psychiatrists made suggestions to the oncologists for all the referred patients, even when they were accurately diagnosed with delirium before consultation. For the correctly recognized patients, the main suggestion was pharmacological reevaluation. For the misdiagnosed cases, the psychiatrists suggested a reconsideration of the strategy for cancer treatment and the provision of information to the patient's family members about their condition.Significance of Results:Despite its high prevalence, delirium is difficult to diagnose for non-psychiatric physicians. Its detection is important not only to give the best treatment option to cancer patients but also to provide the best opportunity to inform their family about their condition and end-of-life issues.

Stroke

With an annual incidence of more than 600,000 cases, thromboembolic stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease and cancer (Kochanek et al., 2004). The number of stroke survivors has increased to 4.5 million adults nationally as the management of acute stroke continues to improve (AHA, 2002). Psychiatric syndromes are common complications of stroke and are associated with psychologic distress, increased impairment, poor rehabilitation outcomes, and excess morbidity. The purpose of this chapter is to describe clinically important poststroke psychiatric disorders and suggest appropriate treatment. Cognitive deficits are the most common psychiatric complication of stroke and affect nearly all stroke survivors. The type of cognitive disturbance depends on the location of the brain injury. Left hemisphere strokes frequently cause aphasia. Right hemisphere strokes cause substantial (but often underrecognized) cognitive impairments such as diminished insight, decreased attention, impaired spatial reasoning, and neglect syndromes. Furthermore, depending on the location of a stroke, other functions such as motivation, memory, judgment, and impulse control may also be affected. A large stroke or a series of small strokes affecting both hemispheres may lead to the global cognitive impairment of dementia. When a series of strokes is involved, the cognitive decline develops in a stepwise manner. This vascular dementia or multi-infarct dementia may be difficult to distinguish from Alzheimer’s disease. Autopsy studies of patients diagnosed with vascular dementia have often demonstrated the presence of Alzheimer’s disease pathology. As many as 25% of all dementia cases are attributable to a combined neuropathology of Alzheimer’s disease and multiple infarcts (Massoud et al., 1999). In addition to strategies such as speech and language therapy, physical and occupational therapy, and cognitive rehabilitation, pharmacologic treatment may improve cognitive deficits in some stroke patients. The parallels between vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as the evidence that reduced cholinergic function may play a role in both (Gottfries et al., 1994) have encouraged the use of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (eg, donepezil) in vascular dementia. These drugs have shown modest benefits in such patients (Roman et al., 2005), and their use is described in Chapter 20.

Neuro-Psychiatric Complication of HIV/AIDS in Royal Nepalese Army

Neuro-Psychiatric Complication of HIV/AIDS in Royal Nepalese Army

Traction Intolerance Syndrome: A Psychiatric Complication of Femoral Fractures

Traction Intolerance Syndrome is defined as a behavioral and/or emotional reaction related to skeletal traction severe enough to require psychiatric consultation and/or the use of major psychiatric medication for prolonged periods in the absence of pre-existing major psychiatric illness. Patients often attribute these reactions to the predicament of traction. This syndrome was present in five of nine patients between the ages of sixteen and forty-five who underwent traction for more than three weeks admitted to the UCLA Orthopedic Service during calendar year 1975. Moreover, all the patients were between sixteen and twenty-six years of age, and all the patients in that age range developed the syndrome. The multiple contributions to the pathogenesis of these reactions are described, and the interventions of the liaison psychiatrist in intervention at the biological, psychological, family and hospital staff levels are discussed.