Posted by alexandra_k on June 8, 2021, at 18:16:31
In reply to Re: Can some of you sci wizs explain..next gen ap's, posted by SLS on June 8, 2021, at 10:26:08
They did say that they have reason to believe the dopamine receptor to be involved in the positive symptoms (e.g., delusions, hallucinations, intense affective responses) rather than the negative symptoms (e.g., social withdrawal). So focusing on a particular kind of dopamine receptor is only likely to help with the positive symptoms rather than the negative.
So not a revolutionary medication. But incrementally better.
Long-term anti-psychotic use has been implicated in tardive dyskinesias (tremors and movement disorder) or Parkinson's (like) movement symptoms. Facial twitching etc. I think that is true for the new generation anti-psychotics also. The risk is less with new than the old generation anti-psychotics, but I think the risk is still there, it just takes heftier doses of the newer generation medicines over a longer period of time because the medications are more specific. The hope is that this will be the next generation of specificity.
The hope of a more specific medication is that there will be a stronger response for less of a dose. So people who are on the maximum dose their bodies can tolerate (because of side-effects like drooling or extreme lethargy or sun sensitivity etc) may be able to have the dose increased without an increase in side-effects for greater therapeutic benefit. Or, they may be able to maintain the therapeutic benefit with less of a dose of the medication. Which would mean less likelihood of long term use of dopamine medications.
It can be hard to disentangle negative symptoms from side-effects of medications IMHO. But I don't have a lot of experience so maybe that is not true to trained clinicians... But I think that a lot of what people think or believe to be negative symptoms are actually side-effects from medications it is just that the benefits are thought to outweigh the harms and when people are worried about acute emergencies they aren't thinking or worrying so much about longer term issues.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1115429
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20210418/msgs/1115483.html