Journal of psychiatric practice
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Efficacy and safety of oral aripiprazole compared with haloperidol in patients transitioning from acute treatment with intramuscular formulations.
To report efficacy and safety of transitioning patients receiving intramuscular (IM) formulations of aripiprazole or haloperidol to their respective oral formulations. ⋯ Acutely agitated patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder treated with aripiprazole IM or haloperidol IM demonstrated similar effective and safe transition to their respective oral formulations. Initial benefits of reduced agitation and improved clinical status during the IM phase of the study were maintained throughout the oral phase of the study with good tolerability.
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Comparative Study
Intramuscular aripiprazole in the control of agitation.
To evaluate response to intramuscular (IM) aripiprazole injections using secondary analyses from clinical trials. ⋯ Improvements with aripiprazole IM appeared to be specific to core agitation symptoms, as opposed to nonspecific sedation, and to be independent of baseline level of agitation. Furthermore, patients benefited from a repeated aripiprazole injection when clinically warranted. These results address important clinical issues regarding use of aripiprazole IM in treating agitation.
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Insomnia is one of the most common complaints faced in clinical practice. The limited pharmacological options available make the treatment of this complaint a challenge. All of the available benzodiazepines and non-benzodiazepine hypnotics have the potential to induce addiction, cause withdrawal symptoms, or trigger rebound insomnia. ⋯ Based on this review, it appears that more placebo-controlled trials are indicated before valid judgments concerning the efficacy of both melatonin and ramelteon can be made. In the meantime, there is some support for the use of melatonin for the treatment of insomnia, and findings concerning ramelteon also appear promising. Nevertheless, clinicians who prescribe melatonin or ramelteon should be cautious and carefully monitor both potential benefits and adverse effects, since data on melatonin are based on studies with multiple limitations and only three controlled trials have been done with ramelteon.