Posted by anxiety_free on November 18, 2004, at 19:43:28
In reply to Re: Specificity of Anti-psychotics, posted by ed_uk on November 18, 2004, at 7:11:33
hey! I take abilify myself, and I must say that it has improved my life INCREDIBLY. That said, I do think the case for neuroleptics is sometimes overstated. Thorazine, for instance, wasn't discovered or designed for psychosis; it was a pre-op sedative a French doc tried out on schizophrenics and found that it "worked". Really, it did reduce positive symptoms, but more important to officials at the time, it made the patients manageable. Now, new APs are based on the old idea that dopamine needs to be altered, but they go about it differently; instead of the old-school dopamine BLOCKING effect, you have more of a MODULATING effect with the newer ones. Its not perfect- TD, akathisia, etc. still happen- but its better. Some studies suggest patients treated with newer drugs have lower rates of relapse, violence, and (I think) suicide than those treated with the old drugs, so we may be moving in a good direction here. The way schizophrenia is managed has, thank god, changed too. There's more likely to be a whole cocktail of drugs involved to perfect chemical balance than in the past, when they Rx'd some Haldol, maybe some Cogentin, and forgot about it. Ohhh...and let's not forget the lobotomy. Fun stuff. So, basically I think the new drugs are a big step forward, and we should be thankful for that while pushing for better, cheaper, gentler treatment. Phew. I'm done.
poster:anxiety_free
thread:416642
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041118/msgs/417665.html