Treatment of Tardive Dyskinesia

Abstract

Based on the hypothesis that an enhanced dopaminergic activity in the basal ganglia may play a major role in tardive dyskinesia, the clinical efficacy of two dopamine-blocking agents, haloperidol (Haldol) and thiopropazate dihydrochloride (Dartal), for the short-term treatment of tardive dyskinesia was studied on 20 patients for four weeks. Both drugs were shown to have marked antidyskinetic effects in over a half of the patients. Improvements of dyskinesia were not always accompanied by development of reversible extrapyramidal symptoms. These results, together with the findings obtained in the previous study, appear to support the above-mentioned hypothesis, and suggest another approach to the symptomatic control of tardive dyskinesia through neurochemical regulation, although the clinical practicability of these drug regimens over a longer period of time is not established and needs further investigation.