Posted by med_empowered on February 20, 2005, at 23:14:49
In reply to Re: Movement disorders of Antipsychotics!, posted by Phillipa on February 20, 2005, at 17:50:45
hey! Tardive Dyskinesia is a SERIOUS problem...it usually starts with mild, uncontrollable facial movements...it sometimes stops completely, sometimes progresses to serious TD, which can be disabling. Sad fact: Thorazine was introduced as a psychiatric drug for schizophrenia in 1954 (it was first used for nausea, vomiting, and as a pre-operative sedative). In 1957, the first reports of what would later be termed "tardive dyskinesia" popped up in the professional literature. Over the years, medical professionals, espcially the staff of mental hospitals, became familiar with the "Thorazine shuffle" as it was called...psychiatrists in the US continued to use large doses of antipsychotics (several times as much typically used in Europe) and the APA regarded TD as a "minor problem". Then, people who had developed TD started suing their doctors and congress held hearings on the use on anti-psychotics in the Soviet Union (to torture and control radicals they labelled as "mentally ill") and on the elderly (they were used to control "senile agitation"), and on juvenile delinquents and other prisoners (the non-mentally ill ones; they called the drugs "zombie juice"). Basically, they found out these drugs caused serious movement disorders AND were being widely used to control people, not cure disease. It wasn't until 1980 that the American Psychiatric Association finally formed a task-force to study TD. Their data (which many, many people believe was highly flawed) found a prevalence rate of "only" 20% in long-term use...it seemed to develop at a rate of (I believe) 4-5%/year. The atypicals, on the other hand, have been touted as significantly less likely to cause TD. Problem? The manufacturer's studies didn't look for TD. In clinical practice, TD is believed to be highly under-diagnosed. That said, newer drugs are believed to cause TD at a rate of 1%/year...but this is flawed. Women and the elderly appear to be at much higher risk, with elderly women at the highest risk of all. Previous research shows that, for some reason, patients who have bipolar, schizoaffective disorder, or schizophrenia and mood-disorder(s) such as depression are at a higher risk than those who have schizophrenia and no mood-disorders. Data also shows that those with TD also often have COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT greater than those without TD...there also seems to be a relationship between the severity of the TD and the severity of the cognitive impairment. Anway, my advice would be to try to find a treatment BESIDES anti-psychotics.
poster:med_empowered
thread:460778
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050217/msgs/461106.html