Therapeutic Approaches to Tardive Dyskinesia

Abstract

This article reviews data published in the last decade describing various therapeutic approaches to tardive dyskinesia. A variety of drugs and treatment modalities have been reported to be effective in the short-term treatment of this syndrome. However, no definite effective treatment has been clearly shown to alleviate or reduce tardive dyskinesia symptomatology over a long time period. As long as psychiatrists must administer neuroleptic drugs to psychotic patients for many years, this syndrome will pose a continuing problem. Further search for effective treatments is vitally necessary as is investigation of ways of preventing this distressing iatrogenic complication. The need for standardized diagnostic criteria as well as objective evaluation methods is clear. In view of present ideas about the pathogenesis of this syndrome, the study of the drugs which may deplete dopamine or counteract dopaminergic activity appears most justified and promising.