Clinical Characteristics of the Poststroke Depression Patient

Koh, Seong Beom; Park, Kun Woo; Lee, Dae Hie

Abstract

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Depression is one of the most common neuropsychiatric sequelae of stroke, and depression is a serious disorder that can compromise the quality of life and overall rehabilitating process. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of depression in acute stroke patient and to compare with nondepressive patients in terms of demographic data, lesion site, pathology and the days of hospitalization. METHOD: Total 200 stroke patients admitted in Korea university hospital from Jan. 1993 to Dec. 1994 were included in this study. Data was collected from the medical records retrospectively and analyzed by means of statistics. RESULT: The frequency of depressive episode was 17% (34/200). The pathologic lesion was more frequently located in the right hemisphere (no statistical significance) and patients with depressive episode showed a higher frequency of lesions in anterior areas of the left hemisphere and posterior areas of the right hemisphere. The hospitalization days of depressive group was longer than that of non-depressive group (student t-test, p<.05). The age of depressive group was younger than that of non-depressive group (student t-test, p<.05). There was a positive correlation between the hospitalization days and the severity of depression(r=0.41). There also was a positive correlation between NIH stroke scale and the severity of depression (r=0.4988).
CONCLUSION
In patients with depressive episode after acute stroke, it was more frequently developed in right posterior hemispheric lesion and their hospitalization days was longer in the depressive group than in nondepressive patients.