Deans' stroke musings: Suicidal Thoughts and Contexts in Black African Stroke Survivors

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Suicidal Thoughts and Contexts in Black African Stroke Survivors

Solve the primary problem of 100% recovery and you won't need to work on this secondary problem. Why are you working on things backwards?

Suicidal Thoughts and Contexts in Black African Stroke Survivors

Akin Ojagbemi, MD, PhD, MSc, Toyin Bello, MSc, Fisayo Elugbadebo, MD

First Published January 10, 2019 Research Article

Abstract

Objectives:

Poststroke suicide has not been studied in Black Africans. We assessed the characteristics and contexts of serious suicidal thoughts after first-ever stroke in Nigerians.

Methods:

Using a comparative cross-sectional design, we consecutively recruited 130 stroke survivors attending rehabilitation in a large university hospital. Also included were 130 age-, sex-, and education-matched caregivers who were unrelated to stroke survivors. Along with clinical and historical details, cognitive functions, experience of serious suicidal thoughts, and major depressive disorder (MDD) were independently assessed using validated semi-structured interviews.

Results:

Serious suicidal thoughts were present in 20 (15.4%) stroke survivors and 19 (14.6%) controls. Poststroke suicidal thoughts occurred in the contexts of MDD (P < .001), marital separation (P = .019), and cognitive dysfunction (P = .037). In a multivariate logistic regression model including age, gender, MDD, marital separation, and cognitive dysfunction as covariates, poststroke MDD and marital separation led to 5.6-fold (95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.5-21.0) and 4-fold (95% CI: 1.2-14.0) increases, respectively, in the odds of serious suicidal thoughts.

Conclusions:

Serious suicidal thoughts after stroke in this African sample were more common than the reported average prevalence in the global literature. Poststroke major depression was the key reversible risk factor for suicidal thoughts. Depression is treatable and prompt treatment may prevent suicidal deaths and reduce the burden of stroke in black Africans.