Neuroleptics delirium

Other sedative-hypnotic medications, such as barbiturates, may play a useful role in severe withdrawal from this group of drugs. For example, in a case series of GBL withdrawal, use of intravenous pentobarbital in the range of 1-2 mg/kg/hour lowered the total requirement for intravenous lorazepam (Sivilotti et al. 2001). Antipsychotic medications are often used to reduce psychotic agitation. However, because antipsychotic medications lower the seizure threshold and may contribute to loss of central control of temperature leading to hyperthermia or neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS), they are not indicated as first-line medications for GHB withdrawal delirium (Dyer and Roth 2001 McDaniel and Miotto 2001 Sharma et al. 2001). If anti-... 

Adverse effects of the TCAs on the brain include confusion, impaired memory and cognition and occasionally delirium some of these effects have been reported to occur in up to 30% of patients over the age of 50. These effects may occasionally be confused with a recurrence of the s)nnptoms of depression and are probably due to the central antimuscarinic activity of these drugs. Tremor also occurs frequently, particularly in the elderly, and may be controlled by the concurrent administration of propranolol. Neuroleptics are normally not recommended to be used in combination with TCAs as they are liable to accentuate the side effects of the latter drugs. The risk of seizures, and the switch from depression to mania in bipolar patients, has also been reported following TCA administration. 

Antipsychotics are drugs that have a specific sedative effect, and which improve the attitude and calm the behavior of psychotic patients. They do not cause dependence, and have been proposed for treating psychotic disorders (elimination of psychotic symptomatology— delirium, hallucinations) and schizophrenic patients. Drugs of this group are also frequently referred to as neuroleptics. The term major tranquilizer was used previously to distinguish them from minor tranquilizers/anxiolytics. 

Haloperidol is one of the most actively used modem neuroleptics. Its high antipsychotic activity is combined with a moderate sedative effect. It effectively stops various types of psychomotor excitement. It is used for schizophrenic psychoses, manic, paranoid, and delirious conditions, depression, psychomotor excitement of various origins, and for delirium and hallucinations of different origin. The most common synonyms are haldol, vezadol, linton, and others. 

Because of multiple receptor actions, which occur at different concentrations, different neuroleptics have different action profiles. There are many classifications for neuroleptic drugs, the least useful of which is probably based on their chemical structure. Other classifications include linear classifications based on the propensity to cause EPS, or multidimensional ones such as the Liege star which combines information on three positive effects (anti-autistic, antiproductive, antipsychotic), and three negative (hypotensive, extrapyramidal, sedative). In a general way, the more sedative neuroleptics such as levomepromazine, used more to treat acute agitation states, cause more hypotension related to alpha blockade, whereas those that act best on delirium (productive states) such as haloperidol tend to cause more EPS. 

Low-potency neuroleptics (e.g., chlorpromazine) Additive effects of blockade of muscarinic cholinergic receptors Anticholinergic effects (dry mouth, tachycardia, possible hyperpyrexia, and delirium) Lower doses of both agents Geller, 1991... 

In addition to acute and chronic schizophrenia, the neuroleptics are sometimes used in the management of mania, delirium, and severe agitation, whatever the cause of these symptom complexes. It must be noted that unlike parkinsonism, where a definite dysfunction in the DA system has been established, for schizophrenia and other psychiatric diseases, no unequivocal evidence has yet been presented to prove that there is a disturbance of the DA system (e.g., dopaminergic overactivity or receptor hypersensitivity). In untreated schizophrenics the production of DA metabolites is normal. Conflicting results have been obtained in studies of the DA receptors in schizophrenics (11,12,13), but in the case of patients who have not received neuroleptics, the receptor density and affinity appear to be normal (13). The "dopamine hypothesis" in these disorders derives from the beneficial effects of drugs that block DA receptors. 

Neuroleptic malignant syndrome is a condition of increased muscle tone, hyporthermia, delirium and dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system which has a significant mortality. 

Normann C, Brandt C, Berger M, Walden J. Delirium and persistent dyskinesia induced by a lithium-neuroleptic interaction. Pharmacopsychiatry 1998 31(5) 201—4. 

Toxic delirium caused by neuroleptic drugs with potent anticholinergic properties has been widely reported (SED-11,107), and has been reported with low-dose clozapine (406). 

Several cases of torsade de pointes have been reported with intravenous haloperidol used with lorazepam to treat delirium (SEDA-18, 30) (SEDA-18, 47). Acid mucopolysaccharide deposition may be associated with neuroleptic drug treatment as a possible mechanism contributing to rare cardiovascular adverse events (57). 

Lewy body disease Difficult to clinically distinguish from Alzheimer s disease at times and may coexist with Alzheimer s disease frequent fluctuations in cognition and behavior (can look like delirium but persists) tremor and rigidity similar to Parkinson s disease repeated unexplained falls unusual sensitivity to neuroleptic medications (more side effects). Lewy bodies are found in neurons at autopsy. 

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