Word: haloperidol
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When Barak came to Abarbanel four years ago, he found 67% of his patients were Holocaust survivors - compared to barely a third of Israel's over-60s generally. A similar imbalance was found in the country's other mental hospitals. Decades of using antipsychotic drugs like haloperidol and Thorazine hadn't worked. In the lobby of the survivors' ward, patients still shake uncontrollably and grind their jaws grotesquely from the side effects of such drugs. Barak changed the diagnosis of schizophrenia attached to most of the 120 survivors in his ward to "long-term post-traumatic psychosis." With Szor...
...schizophrenia field was reborn in 1989, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a remarkable drug, clozapine (brand name: Clozaril). Made by the Swiss pharmaceutical firm Sandoz, Clozaril was aimed at patients who did not benefit from other drugs. While traditional antipsychotic drugs such as chlorpromazine (Thorazine) and haloperidol (Haldol) work by blocking dopamine receptors, Clozaril appears to bind to serotonin receptors as well. "It is what we call a dirty drug," says Mount Sinai's Davis. "It probably binds to a whole bunch of receptors. We used to think that was a bad thing. Now we think that...
...1950s noticed that Thorazine, then administered as a sedative, quieted ravings and hallucinations among soldiers awaiting surgery. That prompted a Paris psychiatrist to try the drug on schizophrenics. Thorazine calmed patients and reduced their symptoms. It was quickly proclaimed a miracle drug. Thorazine and related drugs such as haloperidol, fluphenazine and thiothixene soon eclipsed the brutal treatments previously in vogue: lobotomy, primitive electroshock and artificially induced insulin shock. Over the next two decades, nearly half a million patients were discharged from state hospitals in the U.S. and hundreds of thousands more from hospitals in Europe...
...direct impact on health policies. Between 1979 and 1984, says Sprague, Breuning "produced one-third of the literature in the psychopharmacology of the mentally retarded." The young psychologist began his research in the late 1970s, when treatment of the mentally retarded with powerful antipsychotic drugs, such as haloperidol and chlorpromazine, was being questioned. Breuning's opposition to the overuse of such drugs was shared by other researchers in the field. Even so, some scientists believe Breuning went overboard in discounting the benefits for many severely disturbed patients. Says acting NIMH Director Frank Sullivan: "The retarded are vulnerable. They might have...
Psychotropic drugs, such as chlorpromazine and haloperidol, are the main form of treatment. Because the Soviet pharmaceutical industry is small and cautious, it is slow to put new drugs into production. Soviet hospitals and dispensaries frequently treat schizophrenia with insulin shock therapy. After an insulin injection cuts blood sugar and induces coma, the patient is revived with glucose-a procedure repeated 20 or 30 times...