QDIS Blog

Last week there was an article about a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that basically came to the conclusion that common antipsychotic medications do not particularly help Alzheimer’s patients.

No sign antipsychotics a great help to Alzheimer’s patients: study - Yahoo! News

The drugs they looked at were olanzapine (Zyprexa), quetiapine (Seroquel) and risperidone (Risperdal). While they did have some beneficial effects, the side effects were not worth the small benefit. This is common for central nervous system (CNS) drugs and points to the fact that more targeted molecules are needed. This may stem from our rather poor understanding of the biological systems and mechanisms involved in how these drugs have there affect.

Side effects are the primary reason for not taking CNS drugs. Anyone who has had a loved one or a friend who has been on one of these or other CNS drugs can testify to that. Another problem, once a drug has been found that works and has few or no side effects, is that once they are feeling better, the patient thinks they can do it on their own and don’t need to continue taking their medications. I personally have seen this happen and it results in a roller coaster ride for both the patient and those who care for them. I found this to be particularly true for adolescents and young adults.

All of these are reasons I personally think more work needs to be done in understanding how these rugs work in the body and what can be done to improve the effectiveness of CNS drug by eliminating or reducing these side effects.

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