Post stroke depression (PSD) or depression after stroke treatment is considered the most frequent and important neuropsychiatric consequence of stroke. Approximately one-third of stroke survivors experience major depression or severe depression. Moreover this condition can have an adverse effect on cognitive function, functional recovery and survival.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) IV categorizes post-stroke depression as “mood disorder due to a general medical condition (i.e. stroke)” with the specifiers of depressive features, major depressive-like episodes, manic features, or mixed features.
Utilizing patient data from acute hospital admission, community surveys, or out patient clinics previous studies have identified two types of depressive disorders associated with cerebral ischemia:
– major depression, which occurs in up to 25% of patients; and
– minor depression, which has been defined for research purposes by DSM-IV criteria as a depressed mood or loss of interest and at least two but fewer than four symptoms of major depression. Minor depression occurs in up to 30% of patients following stroke.
Post-stroke depression is highly prevalent among both men and women post-stroke, however, it appears that post-stoke depression is more common in women when prevalence is compared between the sexes. Women were twice as likely to experience post-stroke depression than men.
The cause of post stroke depression at a functional level is not clear.
Rehabilitation of patients after stroke can be managed as residential depression treatment with following natural homeopathic remedies for depression after stroke treatment:
1. Plumbum metallicum
MENTAL DEPRESSION. FEAR OF BEING ASSASSINATED. Quiet melancholy. Slow perception; loss of memory; amnesic aphasia. Hallucinations and delusions. Intellectual apathy. Memory impaired. Paretic dementia.
2. Opium
Patient wants nothing. COMPLETE LOSS OF CONSCIOUSNESS; APOPLECTIC STATE. Frightful fancies, daring, gay, bright. Unable to understand or appreciate his sufferings. Thinks he is not at home. Delirious talking, with wide open eyes.
3. Baryta carbonica
Loss of memory, mental weakness. Irresolute. Lost confidence in himself. Senile dementia. Confusion. BASHFUL. Aversion to strangers. Childish; grief over trifles.
4. Arnica montana
Fears touch, or the approach of anyone. Unconscious; when spoken to answers correctly, but relapses. Indifference; inability to perform continuous active work; morose, delirious. Nervous; cannot bear pain; whole body oversensitive. Says there is nothing the matter with him. Wants to be let alone. Agoraphobia (fear of space). After mental strain or shock.
5. Lachesis muta
Great LOQUACITY. Sad in the morning; no desire to mix with the world. Restless and uneasy; does not wish to attend to business; wants to be off somewhere all the time. Mental labor best performed at night. Euthanasia. Suspicious; nightly delusion of fire. Religious insanity. Derangement of the TIME SENSE.
6. Crotalus horridus
Weeping mood; clouded perception and memory; impatient. Loquacious, with desire to escape. Sadness. Delusions of cerebral decay.
7. Hyoscyamus
VERY SUSPICIOUS. Talkative, obscene, lascivious mania, uncovers body; FOOLISH. Great hilarity; INCLINED TO LAUGH AT EVERYTHING. Delirium, with attempt to run away. Low, muttering speech; CONSTANT CARPHOLOGIA, DEEP STUPOR.
8. Anacardium orientale
Fixed ideas. Hallucinations; THINKS HE IS POSSESSED OF TWO PERSONS OR WILLS. Anxiety when walking, as if pursued. Profound melancholy and hypochondriasis, with TENDENCY TO USE VIOLENT LANGUAGE. BRAIN-FAG. IMPAIRED MEMORY. ABSENT MINDED. VERY EASILY OFFENDED. Malicious; seems bent on wickedness. Lack of confidence in himself or others. Suspicious. Clairaudient, hears voices far away or of the dead. Senile dementia. Absence of all moral restraint.
9. Pulsatilla nigricans
Weeps easily. Timid, irresolute. Fears in evening to be alone, dark, ghosts. Likes sympathy. Easily discouraged. Religious melancholy. Highly emotional. Mentally, an April day.
10. Zincum metallicum
Weak memory. VERY SENSITIVE TO NOISE. Averse to work, to talk. REPEATS EVERYTHING SAID TO IT. Fears arrest on account of a supposed crime. Melancholia. LETHARGIC, STUPID. Paresis.