Depressed Stroke Survivors Rely On Antidepressants
26th December 2011 by Depressed No Comments
About 40 to 50 percent of patients who survive a stroke develops a post-stroke depression according to the UIHealth.care website. Strokes vary in their effect, depending on the amount of tissue damage. The impact can be either mild nor stronger, from challenges in finding words to paralysis, weakness, loss of motor control, and disturbance in thinking, feeling,writing, memory, speech and emotional functioning.
Many patients who survive stroke feel fear,anxiety, frustration, anger, sadness, and a sense of grief for their physical and mental losses according to the United States National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Clinical depression may result to a sense of hopelessness that disrupts an individual’s ability to function. The emotional disorder is the most commonly experienced by stroke survivors.
sleep disturbances and a radical change in eating patterns that may lead to sudden weight loss or gain, lethargy, social withdrawal, irritability, fatigue, self-loathing, and suicidal thoughts are some of the signs of clinical depression.Post-stroke depression can be treated with antidepressant medications.
However, what happened in the case of the Hodge family from Ohio, the filing a Zoloft birth defect lawsuit against Pzifer, the manufacturer, and Cardinal Health, the distributor are examples of effects of Zoloft medication.
They claimed that their son was born with anencephaly, a neural tube defect that is described as the “absence of a large part of the brain and skull.” It was only for 18 hours that their child lived and died due to birth defect. The defect is caused when a woman takes Zoloft or another antidepressant in the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s) class of drugs while pregnant.
What is being defined as a class of medications used as a treatment of psychological conditions, including depression and anxiety disorders by About.com website is the SSRIs. What is involved in a person’s mood is serotonin which is the chemical in the brain.
What makes a person experience depression and anxiety is when there is no appropriate levels of serotonin in their brain. What helps increase levels of serotonin in the brain and improve the mood of the patient is the SSRIs
The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics conducted a recent study about physical and intellectual impairments can be improved when a post-stroke depression is successfully treated with an antidepressant medication. Although, there can also be an alternative which is a psychological counseling.
Due to several side effects caused by the antidepressant drug Zoloft such as Zoloft birth defect among pregnant women, close monitoring and supervision by the patient’s health provider is being advised.
