Depression is a common problem for stroke survivors, but a new study has found that symptoms of depression often appear about two years before a stroke occurs.
Study participants with an average age of 65 took a depression symptoms survey every two years. The more symptoms, the higher their depression score. Six years before a stroke, scores remained steady for all participants. But two years before a stroke, depression scores began to rise and then continued to worsen after the stroke event, remaining high for 10 years.
For non-stroke patients, scores remained roughly the same throughout the study.
“Depression is not only a post-stroke issue, but also a pre-stroke phenomenon,” said Maria Blöchl, PhD, of the University of Münster in Germany. “Whether these pre-stroke changes can be used to predict who will have a stroke is unclear. Exactly why depressive symptoms occur pre-stroke needs to be investigated in future research.”
The study’s results underscore the need for clinicians to monitor for symptoms of depression long-term in stroke survivors, he concluded.
The study was published in the journal Neurology.
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