title: Long-term maintenance lorazepam for catatonia: a case report.
abstract: Catatonia is described as a syndrome of motor abnormality associated with the disorder of thought, behavior and emotions. Lorazepam has been shown to be useful in the short-term management of catatonia [Ungvari G.S., Kau L.S., Wai-Kwong T., Shing N.F., The pharmacological treatment of catatonia: an overview. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 2001;251(suppl 1):31-34; Daniels J., Catatonia: clinical aspects and neurobiological correlates. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 2009;21:371-380]. However, there is sparse literature with respect to patients requiring long-term maintenance lorazepam for catatonia. Manjunatha et al. [Manjunatha N., Saddichha S., Khess C.R.J., Idiopathic recurrent catatonia needs maintenance lorazepam: case report and review. Aust NZ J Psychiatry 2007;41:625-627] described a case which required long-term maintenance lorazepam for recurrent catatonia that was unresponsive to most antipsychotics. Gaind et al. [Gaind G.S., Rosebush P.I., Mazurek M.F., Lorazepam treatment of acute and chronic catatonia in two mentally retarded brothers. J Clin Psychiatry 1994;55:20-23] described the use of maintenance lorazepam in a mentally retarded boy with catatonia of 5 years' duration, which improved slowly over a period of 5 months. We present a case of recurrent catatonia, in which symptoms relapsed whenever an attempt was made to taper off lorazepam.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh 160012, India. drsandeepg2002@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Sandeep
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Grover
authors.forename: Munish
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Aggarwal
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002389:Catatonia / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008140:Lorazepam / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008297:Male; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D008140:Lorazepam