Patients who receive the antidepressant escitalopram (Lexapro) appeared to do better in recovering their thinking, learning and memory skills than those who took a placebo or who participated in problem-solving therapy, according to an article published in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.
According to background information in the article, there is growing interest in therapies which can be administered in the first few months after a stroke, which is the time period when there is the most spontaneous recovery of lost motor and cognitive skills. Antidepressants are believed to be potentially helpful to stroke patients in their recovery because they stimulate production of substances essential for nerve cell growth.
Dr. Ricardo E. Jorge and his associates at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, studied one particular antidepressant, escitalopram, by randomly assigning a group of 129 stroke patients to receive either the drug or a placebo or to participate in problem-solving therapy.
Following 12 weeks of treatment, the patients taking the antidepressant had higher scores in neuropsychological tests assessing their thinking, learning and memory than the other two patient groups. More importantly, the authors noted, the changes resulted in an improvement in related activities of daily living.
According to the article, there is increasing evidence that antidepressants causes changes in brain structure, which may be responsible for the improvements seen in this study. Jorge noted, however, that “whatever may be the mechanism of improved cognitive recovery…the utility of antidepressants in the process of post-stroke recovery deserves to be further investigated.”
From About Depression