Cor Vasa 2009, 51(6):425-426 | DOI: 10.33678/cor.2009.108

Treatment of depression and anxiety disorder after stroke or TIA

Milan Vrána^*, Radkin Honzák¹

¹ Psychiatrická katedra IPVZ, Praha, Česká republika

A proportion of patients after a stroke and transitory ischemic attack (TIA) experiences depression or anxiety. The aim of our study was to test treatment of depression/anxiety with the antidepressant paroxetine in these patients. We retrospectively evaluated outcomes in two subgroups of patients taken out from the basic series of the PrevenPar project. One subgroup included patients after a previous stroke, the other one embraced patients who had had TIA.
One-year treatment with the antidepressant paroxetine at an average dose of 20 mg completely suppressed the symptoms of moderate to severe depression/anxiety. Subsets of patients free of symptoms of depression/anxiety formed in either patient subgroup. It addition to being successful, paroxetine-based treatment was also safe. The authors review the possibility of incorporating the diagnosis and treatment of depression/anxiety into guidelines of Czech professional societies.

Keywords: Stroke; Transitory ischemic attack; Depression; Anxiety; Treatment with the antidepressant paroxetine; Guidelines of Czech societies

Published: June 1, 2009  Show citation