Longitudinal prevalence and determinants of early mood disorder post-stroke

Aphasia blog talk: How does stroke and aphasia affect a person’s social relationships?

“…Receiving support was described as facilitating recovery. There is substantial evidence that those who feel well-supported are less likely to become psychologically distressed post stroke (Hilari et al, 2010;Townend et al, 2007), and more likely to make a fuller physical recovery (Glass & Maddox, 1992;TsounaHadjis, Vemmos, Zakopoulos, & Stamatelopoulos, 2000). As such, strong supportive relationships may 'buffer' some of the negative psychological consequences of having a stroke (Cohen & Wills, 1985).…”

“…In a recent systematic review looking at factors predictive of health-related quality of life for people with aphasia, social factors such as poor support and reduced social network were found to contribute to poor health-related quality of life in 3/4 studies (Hilari, Needle, & Harrison, 2012). A number of stroke studies have documented a significant association between depression and social factors such as loneliness and low satisfaction with social network (Hilari et al, 2010); few social contacts outside the house (Astrom, Adolfsson, & Asplund, 1993); poor family functioning (King et al, 2002); and low perceived social support (Chau et al, 2010;Townend et al, 2007).…”

Inflammation and the Silent Sequelae of Stroke

“…PSD also appears to be related to the degree of neurological disability and functional impairment, as well as to the social support network, socioeconomic status, and education [35,36]. Identified risk factors for PSF depend upon the study in question, but depression, female sex, and European ethnicity are often implicated [12].…”

“…In most studies, psychosocial factors are predictive of PSD [35,36]. Epigenetics are invoked as a link between psychosocial stressors and the biology that mediates disease onset or outcome [65].…”

“…The FAS has been validated in healthy cohorts [71]. FAS scores of 10-21 indicate that the patient is "not tired", scores of 22-34 indicate that the patient is "tired", and scores of [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] indicate that the patient is "very tired" [72]. We evaluated the relationship between the biomarkers of inflammation shown in Fig.…”