Antidepressant therapy in post-stroke depression

About 40% of patients with stroke will develop depression at some stage after the acute event. Post-stroke depression (PSD) is associated with a poor prognosis. Depressed patients have more severe deficits in activities of daily living, a worse functional outcome, more severe cognitive deficits and increased mortality as compared to stroke patients without depression.

This review will focus on available controlled trials of treatment for PSD.

An unsystematic review of recent studies for the treatment of PSD.

Randomized controlled trials have demonstrated the efficacy of sertraline, citalopram and nortriptyline to treat post-stroke depression. Whether antidepressant medication may help to prevent post-stroke depression and decrease post-stroke mortality will require further controlled studies.