Review Finds Women More Prone to Post-Stroke Depression
November 20th, 2009 |
A GoodTherapy.org News Headline
Having a stroke is an event that’s likely to cause mental and emotional difficulties; whether it’s apprehension at being hospitalized, loss of memory or function, or any number of associated issues, stroke can greatly impact mental well-being. In some cases, stroke sufferers may develop thoughts and feelings of depression after the incident, and a research team from the University of Toronto has recently revealed review results suggesting that this occurs significantly more often in women than in men. The review focused on a total of fifty six studies and presents strong evidence for a need to provide better mental health services to female stroke sufferers to help prevent the onset of depression, which can make post-stroke living far more difficult.
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This just raises the concern once again that medical care needs to treat the whole person and not just the symptoms at hand. When counselors are able to get in there with the doctors who are treating the physical aspects of the stroke, they can also work together to develop a care plan that will address the other underlying problems such as this that are sure to occur in more patients than we may have once realized. And these kinds of studies can’t stop with just stroke victims. We have to look at illnesses across the board and detrmine which patients are most high risk and how we can all better serve their individual needs.
I thought the incidence of depression was generally higher in women than men anyway. Could it not be that some of those studied were already suffering undiagnosed and untreated depression prior to the stroke?