Sunday, 04 May 2014 16:28

New antipsychotic medications – The best option for treating various mental diseases

New antipsychotic medications New antipsychotic medications

Antipsychotic medications are considered as the best mode of treatment for mental ailments like schizophrenia, psychotic agitation and bipolar disorder and are also used in the treatment of non-psychotic ailments like autism, Tourette syndrome and anxiety. These medications are known to block the receptors in the brain. They are called dopamine antagonists where Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that ensures that messages are passed from one brain cell to another.

When there is an excess of Dopamine in the brain it leads to confusion of the messages thereby causing various mental ailments. Antipsychotic drugs help to block the reuptake of Dopamine from the cells as a consequence of which Dopamine is decreased in the cells. This as a result decreases the symptoms in the patient.

There are two major types of antipsychotic medications namely the typical antipsychotic medications and the atypical antipsychotic drugs. Though both of them work equally to reduce and control the symptoms that a patient exhibits when he is suffering from any of the mental diseases mentioned above, the new antipsychotic medications or the atypical antipsychotic drugs are considered better because they are said to have lesser side effects than the first set of medications. Of course they are not completely without side effects, but they are far less. Two of the main side effects of the newer antipsychotic medications are weight gain and metabolic syndrome. These drugs are also referred to as the second generation antipsychotic medications and are more expensive that the typical antipsychotic drugs.

When a person is suffering from mental disorders, doctors usually prescribe one of the medications from the new antipsychotic medications list that can help in alleviating the symptoms, though they will not help in curing the disease altogether. Some of the drugs that belong to the new antipsychotic medications list are Zyprexa, Prolixin, Abilify, Clozaril, Geodon, Haldol, Risperdal, Seroquel, Thorazine, Trilafon to mention a few.

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