Psychological Problems after Stroke and Their Management: State of Knowledge

Background: Stroke has the greatest disabling impact of any chronic disease. Psychological changes including emotional, behavioural and cognitive changes can be common after stroke. Recently more attention has been given to these concerns. Content: This paper considers the nature of these problems, how they can be identified and the evidence for effective interventions. Conclusions: Research is needed into instruments to better identify anxiety after stroke and into treatments for emotional and behavioural changes. Further work is also needed to establish the best means for identifying cognitive deficits after stroke, particularly executive and memory problems, and into the optimal means of ameliorating these deficits.