Schizophrenia Treatments
There is no cure for schizophrenia! The best we can achieve with treatment is to reduce and control the symptoms of schizophrenia.
The response to the treatment depends on:
- Intensity of the illness
- How early the disease is discovered
- To prescribe the right treatment
- The treatment to have the right doses
- The patient compliance
- The understanding of the patient to respect his treatment
The antipsychotic medication can be separated in classic and new class of antipsychotics.
Classic antipsychotics are the first that appeared and have been used. When they appeared it was thought that cure was found for schizophrenia because many symptoms disappeared or diminish. But that was not quite so. Chlorpromazine (Thorazine), haloperidol (Hadol) and thioridazine (Melarill) became the standard treatments in 1950s. This medication reduced very well hallucinations and delusions. But they have many side effects, some of them disappear after stopping the treatment, some of them irreversible, and that made the patient stop taking his medication.
The most important side effects of the classic antipsychotic are: dizziness, dry mouth, constipation, urinary retention, sexual problems, heart palpitation, blurred vision, muscle twitches, tics and akathisia.
In 1990s, appeared a new class of antipsychotics: Risperidone (Risperdal), olanzapine (Zyprexa), quetiapine (Seroquel), ziprasidone (Geodon) and aripiprazole (Abilify) and Clorazin acting at the brain level by blocking dopamine. This drugs don’t have the side effects that classic antipsychotic do.
The problems with the new antipsychotic medicine are:
- patients gain weight after taking this medication
- Clorazil causes agranulocitosys
- Are very expensive
Also, the new antipsychotic are a better alternative to the classic ones, and
patients are responding very well to this treatment.
Not only drug therapy is used. Also, group therapy, family therapy and individual psychotherapy are used with great results, and help the patient to a better integration in society.
Schizophrenia Treatment - Google News
Last update: 12/01/2008
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