Poster session 4, Abstracts 1167–1209

• Book ID: 102503212
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 173 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-3185
• DOI: 10.1002/mds.20183

✦ Synopsis

Objective: To describe our preliminary experience on the use of aripiprazole for drug-induced psychosis (DIP) in Parkinson's disease (PD).

Background: Aripiprazole is the newest atypical antipsychotic (AA) drug to be released in the US. It is the only AA that is a partial agonist at the D2 and 5HT1a receptors and an antagonist at 5HT2a receptors. It also has a high 5HT2/D2 ratio and may therefore carry a low risk of extrapyramidal side effects and alleviate psychosis in parkinson-vulnerable populations.

Methods: We report a series of eight patients with probable PD treated with aripiprazole for DIP. Aripiprazole was started at 5-10 mg/day and slowly increased over 3-7 days until side effects or improvement of psychosis occurred.

Results: Two patients were neuroleptic-naive, five patients were "quetiapine failures," and one patient was switched from olanzapine to aripiprazole. Only 2 out of 8 patients experienced near complete resolution of their psychosis using aripiprazole. The other six patients discontinued aripiprazole within 40 days, 2 of whom discontinued due to motor worsening.

Conclusion: Our preliminary experience with aripiprazole is mixed but not very encouraging. Controlled studies are needed to evaluate aripiprazole in parkinsonian patients.