title: Pharmacotherapy for refractory schizophrenia patients.
abstract: Most schizophrenic patients experience morbidity over the course of their illness, as the illness runs a chronic course and full remissions are infrequent. Therefore, defining treatment resistance among schizophrenia is problematic. Not all patients respond to antipsychotic medication treatment and an estimated 30-50% are considered resistant to treatment. Treatment resistance normally occurs along a continuum and most patients manifest varying degrees of resistance to antipsychotic medications. Essock and colleagues discovered that more than 60% of the patients in state hospitals met the criteria for clozapine therapy and, therefore, they may qualify for treatment resistance.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles, Harbor UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA 90502, USA. jananth@rei.edu
authors.forename: Jambur
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ananth
authors.forename: Kartik
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ananth
authors.forename: Karl
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Burgoyne
authors.forename: Taghrid
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sidhom
authors.forename: Sarath
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gunatilake