Choosing antipsychotic drugs in schizophrenia

Abstract

Clinical psychiatrists are today in a position to prescribe an expanded range of antipsychotic drugs for the treatment of schizophrenia and related psychoses. The introduction of chlorpromazine in 1952 was followed by many others. They varied in potency and in side-effect profile, but they shared the capacity to cause extrapyramidal side-effects (EPS). These side-effects were produced by a mechanism intrinsically similar to that responsible for the antipsychotic effectiveness of the drug. They seemed to be the price that had to be paid for the resolution of psychotic symptoms.