It’s difficult to decide if Parkinson’s disease patients have more to fear from the illness than the drugs to treat it. Around 22 per cent suffer drug induced psychosis, often resulting in nursing home care.
So how do you then treat the drug induced psychosis? With drugs of course! Researchers tested the antipsychotic drug clozapine on a group of 60 Parkinson’s patients who, at daily doses of 50 mg, saw their psychoses improve.
Of course, clozapine doesn’t come without its own side effects, such as weight gain and agranulocytosis, an acute blood disorder. So all we need now is a drug that successfully treats agranulocytosis. . .