Suggestions for a rational aproach to the chemotherapy of schizophrenia.
Current psychiatric practice does not seem to have kept pace with the best recommendations of modern clinical psychopharmacology. Polypharmacy, inadequate dosage, overly brief drug trails, and erratic medication changes are commonplace. Psychopharmacology is obligated to disseminate the most current thinking in usuable form and psychiatry to attempt to implement it in clinical practice. Unique here is the concept that there are pharmacologic, theoretical, and technical reasons to prefer the use of high potency neuroleptics for the routine treatment of schizophrenia and to relegate low potency drugs to secondary status. Routine employment of higher standard neuroleptic doses is advanced to minimize the effects of individual variations in compliance, absorption, and metabolism. A suggested protocol for the acute treatment of schizophreniform disorders is offered.
D000978:Antiparkinson Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D004334:Drug Administration Schedule; D004359:Drug Therapy, Combination; D006801:Humans; D012107:Research Design; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000188:drug therapy*; D013375:Substance Withdrawal Syndrome; D014149:Tranquilizing Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000009:adverse effects
D000978:Antiparkinson Agents; D014149:Tranquilizing Agents