Delirium anticonvulsants

Paraldehyde, a miscellaneous sedative and hypnotic, may be used to treat delirium tremens and other psychiatric conditions. In addition, some barbiturates are used as anticonvulsants (see Chap. 28). 

Information about prescription drag use alcohol or other substance use family medical history and history of trauma, depression, or head injury should be obtained. It is important to rule out medication use as a contributor or cause of symptoms (e.g., anticholinergics, sedatives, hypnotics, opioids, antipsychotics, and anticonvulsants) as contributors to dementia symptoms. Other medications may contribute to delirium, e.g.,... 

Neurology recognizes that relatively minor head trauma—even without the delirium, loss of consciousness, and seizures associated with ECT— frequently produces chronic mental dysfunction and personality deterioration (Bernat et al., 1987). If a woman came to an emergency room in a confusional state from an accidental electrical shock to the head, perhaps from a short circuit in her kitchen, she would be treated as an acute medical emergency. If the electrical trauma had caused a convulsion, she might be placed on anticonvulsants to prevent a recurrence of seizures. If she developed a headache, stiff neck, and nausea—a triad of symptoms typical of post-ECT patients—she would probably be admitted for observation to the intensive care unit. Yet ECT delivers the same electrical closed-head injury, repeated several times a week, as an alleged means of improving mental function. ECT is electrically induced closed-head injury. 

Indications Seizure disorders, anticonvulsants, anxiety, tension and insomnia, surgical adjuncts for conscious sedation or amnesia, skeletal muscle spasms or tremors, delirium, schizophrenia as an adjunct, nausea and vomiting induced by chemotherapy, neonatal opiate withdrawal Common drug examples ... 

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