Experience of treating depression in patient who survived coronavirus infection

Abstract

A sharp rise in the prevalence of mixed anxiety-depressive disorder is observed during the pandemic. Along with symptoms of anxiety, asthenic complaints and cognitive impairment predominate among clinical manifestations of post-COVID-19 depression [4-7]. This drives the patients to first contact general practitioners and neurologists. In the reported clinical case a female patient, who had recently survived coronavirus infection, developed a moderate depressive episode. Antidepressant monotherapy with vortioxetine (Brintellix) as initial treatment was selected based on the polymorphic clinical picture of mood disorder that included not only clear cognitive and asthenic symptom clusters, but also anxiety symptom cluster. Furthermore, vortioxetine is compatible with anticoagulants still taken by the patient due to recommendations of general practitioner. Taking into account the patient's hypochondriacal fixation on her physical health, it is important to note that vortioxetine has no adverse effects on the function of cardiovascular system. In real clinical practice, vortioxetine (Brintellix) shows high efficacy and good tolerability when used for treatment of depressions developing after coronavirus infection.

Keywords

• covid-19
• depression
• vortioxetine