What medications are used to treat schizophrenia?
Antipsychotic medication is the primary pharmacological treatment for schizophrenia. These medications decrease the symptoms of schizophrenia for most patients, but rarely ever cure the illness or return people to their premorbid levels of functioning. So, although some people with schizophrenia may appear normal, in reality, they almost never reclaim their full potential. For many patients the addition of mood stabilizers, antidepressants and even antianxiety medications are valuable. Approximately 50% of people with schizophrenia attempt suicide and 12% of those succeed. Suicide attempts those with schizophrenia is a major public health problem, but it is poorly recognized. As successful as antipsychotic medications have been in treating most of the symptoms of schizophrenia, they have failed to decrease the rate of suicide significantly. One exception to this is the drug clozapine (Clozaril), which has been shown to decrease the suicide rate in several studies.
Petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html St. Petersburg Times By ROBERT FARLEY Published July 29, 2007 Skyrocketing numbers of kids are prescribed powerful antipsychotic drugs. More and more, parents at wit’s end are begging doctors to help them calm their aggressive children or control their kids with ADHD. More and more, doctors are prescribing powerful antipsychotic drugs. In the past seven years, the number of Florida children prescribed such drugs has increased some 250 percent. Last year, more than 18,000 state kids on Medicaid were given prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs. Even children as young as 3 years old. Last year, 1,100 Medicaid children under 6 were prescribed antipsychotics, a practice so risky that state regulators say it should be used only in extreme cases. These numbers are just for children on fee-for-service Medicaid, generally the poor and disabled. Thousands more kids on private insurance are also on antipsychotics. Almost entirely
