Podcast: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors for stroke recovery

Stroke is a major cause of death and disability across the world, with many reviews from the Cochrane Stroke Group providing evidence on the effects of treatments and rehabilitation interventions. In November 2019, the Group published their update of their review of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and we asked lead author, Gillian Mead from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, to tell us more.Stroke is a common cause of disability in the community. Although there have been major advances in the care of stroke patients over the last few years, many survivors are still left with physical disability, such as weakness down one side of the body, called hemiparesis, difficulty speaking, low mood, anxiety, fatigue, and memory and thinking problems. Therefore, we need better treatments to address stroke disability.One possibility is the group of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (or SSRI for short). These have been used for many years to treat mood disorders in the general population and also after stroke. In 2011, a French trial showed that one of the SSRI, fluoxetine, improved recovery of arm weakness if given early after stroke, in people without mood problems.   We then performed a Cochrane review of all trials of SSRI given after stroke and found that SSRIs did seem to reduce disability. However, we could not be confident that the results were reliable, because many of the studies were small and had multiple sources of bias. On the positive side, ...
Source: Cochrane News and Events - Category: Information Technology Authors: Source Type: news