Treatment of psychosis in Parkinson's disease.
Psychotic symptoms, including hallucinations, delusions, delirium,sleep-wake disturbances, are a common problem in Parkinson's disease and often lead to a significant decline in the patient's overall function. Treatment of these symptoms is a dilemma in patients with parkinsonism because traditional antipsychotics that are usually effective in older people will often worsen motor symptoms and counteract the effect of antiparkinsonian medications. Several new atypical antipsychotics and other drugs have now been tested in clinical trials and are much more effective in the alleviation of psychotic symptoms without worsening Parkinson symptoms. We have performed an extensive literature review of this topic and present detailed information on medications currently available for the treatment of psychosis in Parkinson's disease as well as some promising drugs that may be available in the future.
D'Souza
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S
University of Connecticut Internal Medicine Residency Program, Farmington, CT, USA.
Barnett
S K
SK
Rangu
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S
Rowland
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FN