BACKGROUND The second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) are associated with metabolic disturbances. Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is a rare, but potentially fatal sign of acute glucose metabolism dysregulation, which may be associated with the use of SGAs. This study aims to review published reports of patients with schizophrenia and antipsychotic drug-associated DKA, focusing on the effective man...

Reasons for switching patients to different antipsychotic drugs and strategies for doing so are reviewed. Atypical antipsychotics have better adverse-effect profiles than conventional agents and may have subtle advantages in terms of efficacy. Patients who do not respond satisfactorily to one atypical antipsychotic agent may do so to another. Thus, many patients taking antipsychotic agents may ...

BACKGROUND All antipsychotic medications carry warnings of increased mortality for older adults, but little is known about comparative mortality risks between individual agents. AIMS To estimate the comparative mortality risks of commonly prescribed antipsychotic agents in older people living in the community. METHOD A retrospective, claims-based cohort study was conducted of people over 65...

The Classification of Psychoactive Drugs Sedative Hypnotics and Antianxiety Agents Focus on Disorders: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Antipsychotic Agents Antidepressants Focus on Disorders: Depression Narcotic Analgesics Stimulants Drugs, Experience, Context, and Genes Tolerance Sensitization Addiction and Dependence Explaining Drug Abuse Behavior on Drugs Why Doesn’t Everyone Abuse Drugs? Can Drugs C...

Before the 1990s, treatment of psychoses centred on conventional agents whose tolerability was limited by extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS). The past decade has seen the emergence of newer generation of antipsychotic agents. These agents provide better negative symptom efficacy, less impaired cognition and lower risk of extrapyramidal syndromes. Aripiprazole, a new atypical antipsychotic drug, disp...

This project evaluated the attitudes of psychiatric patients towards receiving either olanzapine or the first-generation antipsychotic agents. Newly admitted patients to a state psychiatric hospital who were either prescribed olanzapine (n=35) or other first-generation antipsychotic agents (n=34) were compared on measure of their personal attitudes toward receiving medicines using the Drug Atti...

Major thematic threads linking extensive preclinical and clinical efforts have established a working mechanistic scheme whereby atypical antipsychotic drugs ameliorate negative DSM IV diagnostic criteria by effecting relatively potent blockade of serotonin (5-HT)(2A) receptors coupled with weaker antagonism of dopamine D(2) receptors in frontal cortical areas. These contentions are more or less...