Depressive symptoms and executive functioning in stroke patients: A follow-up study
International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 10/27/2010
Clinical Article
Bour A et al. –The objective of this study was to study the longitudinal relationship between depressive symptoms and executive dysfunction in stroke patients. Symptoms of depression and executive dysfunction are highly prevalent in stroke patients and often co-occur. These patients are more at risk for poor stroke outcome, chronic depression, and cognitive deterioration.
Methods- 116 first-ever stroke patients who were followed-up for 2years and assessed for emotional and cognitive sequellae after 1, 6, 12, and 24months
- Emotional disturbances evaluated using SCL-90 depression subscale
- Executive functions assessed using compound scores of combination of interference scores of Stroop Colour Word Test and Concept Shifting Test
- 25 patients suffered from both depressive symptoms and executive dysfunction
- 28 patients were depressed with no signs of executive dysfunction
- 13 patients showed executive dysfunction with no depressive symptoms
- Patients with executive dysfunction had higher mean SCL-90-D scores compared to patients with no executive dysfunction (30.9 (SD 11.7) versus 26.2 (SD 11.1, p=0.037)
- Depressive symptoms predictive for executive dysfunction in regression analysis corrected for age, sex, and diabetes mellitus but not after additional correction for pre-existent brain damage and other vascular risk factors
- After 2years 66.6 and 53.3% of patients with both depressive symptoms and executive dysfunction at baseline still had depressive symptoms and executive dysfunctions respectively and had worse prognostic outcome than patients with depressive symptoms or executive dysfunction alone
