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Parkinson disease and Neuroleptic withdrawal

Background

Abrupt cessation of most psychiatric drugs leads to varying withdrawal symptoms. Although Clozapine withdrawal symptoms are well documented, this case presentation addresses issues pertaining to the severity of the withdrawals and the similarities to Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome (NMS). This patient who was only on 100mg of Clozapine required ventilation in Intensive care unit. Neurologist found no causative factor but treated the patient symptomatically to recovery. Family history however revealed that both the patient's parents suffered from severe Parkinson disease. This case presentation discusses the association between NMS like symptoms and neuroleptic withdrawal syndrome in patients with a family history of Parkinson disease.

Materials and methods

Case study

Results

Patient with a strong family history of Parkinson disease are at a greater risk of developing NMS like symptoms when Clozapine is abruptly withdrawn.

Conclusions

Clozapine and other medications with strong anticholinergic properties should never be abruptly stopped. This fact should be even more important if a patient has a family history of Parkinson disease.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Jambunathan, S., Gil, J., Koh, O.H. et al. Parkinson disease and Neuroleptic withdrawal. Ann Gen Psychiatry 9 (Suppl 1), S223 (2010). https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1186/1744-859X-9-S1-S223

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  • DOI: https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1186/1744-859X-9-S1-S223

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