Fitness, depression, and poststroke fatigue: worn out or weary?

Abstract

Each year, around 15 million people worldwide have a stroke. Of these, at least 5 million die, a third remain disabled, and the remainder make a good recovery.(1) Yet more than half of all these 10 million survivors will have fatigue, one of the most debilitating, but least studied, poststroke symptoms. Poststroke fatigue (PSF) is a multifaceted phenomenon.(2) It has been correlated with lowered mood, as well as being influenced by other factors, like age, sex, and cognition. Many researchers have demonstrated that the presence of fatigue negatively influences quality of life, return to work, and perhaps mortality.(3,4) However, most studies have been conducted cross-sectionally, in the subacute or chronic phase after stroke.(4-6.)