PRACTICES OF ANTIPSYCHOTIC POLYPHARMACY IN SCHIZOPHRENIA: A REVIEW

With an increase in the new generation of antipsychotic drugs and resulting antipsychotic polypharmacy, treatment of schizophrenic patients has again come into the daily agenda. In spite of the annual increase of these new drugs in recent years no expected benefit in the treatment of patients has been observed. A lack of alternative treatments of schizophrenia and the increase of polypharmaceutical approaches to treatment have led to clinicians feeling helpless; especially as schizophrenia is known to be treatment resistant over time and is often subject to poor prognosis. According to the treatment algorhythm the application of antipsychotic polypharmacy can be the choice of treatment for treatment-resistant patients but only following a program of sufficient monotherapy. For a short period, antipsychotic polypharmacy can ease the transition from the use of one antipsychotic to that of another. However it is thought that this approach is often over used in clinical experiments and observations. The frequency of the antipsychotic polypharmacy use in schizophrenia has been discussed in this review. Key words: atypical antipsychotics, combination treatment, polypharmacy, schizophrenia