The Journal of clinical psychiatry
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Four of five patients who had had an operationally defined syndrome of postpsychotic depression, which had been responsive to adjunctive imipramine added to an ongoing regimen of fluphenazine decanoate and benztropine, suffered a return of depressive symptomatology following the tapering of the adjunctive imipramine 6 months after the initial response to imipramine therapy. Four comparison patients who were not tapered experienced no such reexacerbations (p = .04). The authors discuss implications of this finding for maintenance adjunctive antidepressant treatment strategies.
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The authors present a study in which 33 chronic schizophrenic patients who, when withdrawn from antipsychotic drug treatment for more than 2 weeks, presented with concurrent signs of akathisia and tardive dyskinesia; however, signs of akinesia, facial masking, rigidity, or dystonia were not concurrent with the patients' akathetic presentation. In a subsequent study phase, these patients were treated with antipsychotics for up to 6 weeks. The dyskinetic signs that had been dramatically more severe in those patients exhibiting akathisia following withdrawal from antipsychotic medication continued for up to 6 weeks following the renewal of antipsychotic drug therapy. These findings help to confirm a relationship between tardive dyskinesia and a persistent akathisia of later onset known as tardive akathisia.