Anticholinergic medication for antipsychotic-induced tardive dyskinesia.

Antipsychotic (neuroleptic) medication is used extensively to treat people with serious mental illnesses. However, it is associated with a wide range of adverse effects, including movement disorders. Because of this, many people treated with antipsychotic medication also receive anticholinergic drugs in order to reduce some of the associated movement side-effects. However, there is also a suggestion from animal experiments that the chronic administration of anticholinergics could cause tardive dyskinesia. To determine whether the use or the withdrawal of anticholinergic drugs (benzhexol, benztropine, biperiden, orphenadrine, procyclidine, scopolamine, or trihexylphenidyl) are clinically effective for the treatment of people with both antipsychotic-induced tardive dyskinesia and schizophrenia or oth er chronic mental illnesses.
Source: Current Awareness Service for Health (CASH) - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news