Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0036572 (seizures)
 80,221 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Loxapine is a dibenzoxazepine, tricyclic compound recommended for the treatment of acute and chronic schizophrenia. In its therapeutic effectiveness and profile and incidence of side-effects, loxapine closely resembles the traditional antipsychotic agents. Although loxapine has tended to be less effective than some standard antipsychotic drugs in a few short-term (3 to 4 weeks) studies, it has been superior to a placebo and about as effective as chlorpromazine, haloperidol, trifluoperazine or thiothixene when evaluated after 4 to 12 weeks. Like the phenothiazine (e.g. chlorpromazine) and butyrophenone (e.g. haloperidol) antipsychotic agents, loxapine causes a high incidence of extrapyramidal reactions. Sedation occurs frequently, especially during early stages of treatment. Other, less common side-effects such as anticholinergic effects (dry mouth, blurred vision, etc.), hypotension, tachycardia and precipitation of epileptic seizures, which occur with the older antipsychotic drugs, have also been reported with loxapine.
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PMID:Loxapine: a review of its pharmacological properties and therapeutic efficacy as an antipsychotic agent. 2 67

Clonazepam is a potent, long-acting benzodiazepine approved for use in myoclonic and petit mal seizures. Initial reports have demonstrated encouraging results with clonazepam in the treatment of acute mania as well as a favorable side-effect profile. A trial of adjunctive clonazepam was initiated in a 41-year-old patient with chronic schizophrenia. Two weeks later, while on an 8-mg dosage, he became manic, developing pressured speech, euphoria, inflated esteem, agitation, and insomnia. Initiation of electroconvulsive therapy with gradual tapering and discontinuation of the clonazepam resulted in amelioration of the manic episode and a return to his previous clinical status. Clinicians should be alerted to the potential of clonazepam to cause manic-like behavior in susceptible patients.
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PMID:Mania associated with clonazepam. 194 70

Behavioral treatment of a 35 year old female with chronic schizophrenia and water intoxication with seizures was conducted on an inpatient psychiatric unit. Treatment included frequent daily weights, restricted fluid intake, positive reinforcement for program compliance, and time-out from reinforcement following significant weight gain or other specified program violations. The final 6 months of the 30 month treatment program were a maintenance phase during which most contingencies were faded and all fluid restrictions were removed. There was no reported recurrence of polydipsia after 18 months of community placement.
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PMID:Successful behavioral treatment of polydipsia in a schizophrenic patient. 237 69

Forty four consecutive patients with epilepsy and psychoses were studied retrospectively for psychotic episodes associated with changes in antiepileptic drug therapy. Twenty seven patients (61%) developed their first episode of psychosis unrelated to changes in their antiepileptic drug regimen. Twenty three of these patients developed psychoses with temporally unrelated changes in seizure frequency. Many patients had chronic schizophrenia-like psychotic symptoms. Seventeen patients (39%) developed their first episode of psychosis in association with changes in their antiepileptic drug regimen. Twelve patients developed psychoses temporally related to seizure attenuation or aggravation. Many of their psychotic symptoms were polymorphic with a single episode or recurrent episodes. No marked differences were found in the various clinical backgrounds between the two groups. In the drug-related group, seven patients developed psychoses after starting add-on therapy with a new antiepileptic drug, six after abruptly discontinuing their drugs, and four after taking an overdose of antiepileptic drugs. Based on the present findings, drug regimens should be changed gradually and compliance should be maintained to prevent epileptic psychoses.
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PMID:Epileptic psychoses and anticonvulsant drug treatment. 1040 99

For decades, psychiatrists have considered that concepts of impaired consciousness in the study of psychiatry were inconsistent with those applied in the field of neurology, in which the usefulness of the concept of consciousness has long been seriously doubted. Gloor concluded that the concept of consciousness does not further the understanding of seizure mechanisms or brain function, which is the current representative opinion of most epileptologists. Loss of consciousness tends to be reduced to aggregates of individual impairments of higher cognitive functions, and the concept of consciousness is preferably avoided by neurologists by assigning various behavioral disturbances during disturbed consciousness to particular neuropsychological centers. In contrast, psychiatrists, especially those in Europe, are more likely to include phenomena involving problems related to phenomenological intentionality in impaired consciousness. For the present study, we first divided consciousness into vigilance and recursive consciousness, and then attempted to determine what kind of impaired consciousness would be an ideal candidate to represent pure disturbance of recursive consciousness. Then, 4 patients, 1 each with pure amnestic states followed immediately by complex partial seizures, an akinetic mutistic state caused by absence status, and mental diplopia as a manifestation of postictal psychosis, as well as a patient with Alzheimer's disease who gracefully performed Japanese tea ceremony, were studied. Based on our findings, we concluded that impaired consciousness as a generic term in general medicine does not indicate any unitary entity corresponding to some well-demarcated physiological function or constitute a base from which recursive consciousness emerges as a superstructure. From that, we stressed that a pure form of impairment of recursive consciousness could occur without the impaired consciousness named generically in general medicine. Second, following observation of an additional 3 cases, descriptions of naissance of the first word (taken from the autobiography of Helen Keller), visual object agnosia, and chronic schizophrenia with schizophasia were discussed to examine the relationship between impairments of recursive consciousness and semantic generation dysfunction. Attempts to bridge semantic generation and recursive consciousness, performed by psychopathologists such as Bin Kimura and Hiroyuki Koide, were also briefly discussed. In light of these case presentations and related discussions, we re-examined traditional theories of impaired consciousness, including Mayer-Gross's Gestalt theory, later replaced by Conrad and Henri Ey's theory related to intentionality. Furthermore, we attempted to link Denett's theory of consciousness to those traditional theories as well as to our own postulations, and neuropsychological data such as those of implicit memory and blindsight. Finally, the significance of Freud's unconsciousness in the framework of neuroscience was discussed.
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PMID:[What is impaired consciousness? Revisiting impaired consciousness as psychiatric concept]. 1558 Aug 68

Neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) is an uncommon but sometimes fatal complication of neuroleptics and other medications that involve the central dopaminergic system. Many diagnostic criteria have been proposed for NMS but because of its variable presentation, universal criteria have not been established yet. Hyperthermia, disturbances of consciousness, extrapyramidal and autonomic symptoms are common features of NMS. We report the case of a 36 years old woman suffering from chronic schizophrenia and treated with flufenazine and olanzapine, who presented with series of generalised tonic-clonic seizures as the acute onset of recurrent malignant neuroleptic syndrome. Although atypical neuroleptics were previously thought to have less risk for MNS, combination of conventional and atypical neuroleptics in therapy increases the risk of NMS development and olanzapine might be responsible for the epileptic manifestations at the onset of fulminant NMS.
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PMID:Series of seizures as a sign of development of recurrent malignant neuroleptic syndrome - a case report. 1680 7

Aripiprazole has been recognised as a third generation antipsychotic and is considered to be distinguished from typical and atypical antipsychotics. In clinical trials, researchers did not mention the risk of aripiprazole-induced seizure, but during a literature review a case report was found that discussed this potential side effect. The present report concerns a 54-year-old man with chronic schizophrenia who developed a witnessed grand mal seizure after he had abruptly discontinued clozapine and benzodiazepam (BZD) treatment and concurrently reinitiated aripiprazole treatment as the result of an involuntary clinical error. The possible causes were explored, including clozapine-induced or withdrawal seizure, BZD withdrawal syndrome, psychogenic non-epileptic seizure, hyponatraemia, brain tumour and major physical illness, but none of the hypotheses can explain the seizure observed in this case. This second case is presented to corroborate a previous finding and emphasise the possibility of aripiprazole-induced seizure.
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PMID:Aripiprazole-induced seizure: a second case report. 2175 63

It is relatively unknown that some of the possible side effects of antibiotic treatment can be transient psychotic episodes and other encephalopathies such as seizure disorders. Since these are rare events, there have not been many studies about them, nor is there a clear understanding of the underlying basis for these symptoms. This phenomenon was recently brought to our attention by a patient whose case history is discussed here. For the past few years, he has been diagnosed at different times with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder with psychosis, temporal lobe epilepsy, and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures. He was seen by a neurologist and placed on carbamazepine, which by his admittance helped him tremendously. During this same time period, psychiatrists placed him on various antipsychotic medications as well. The patient researched many medical conditions and came to the conclusion that his symptoms are caused by a large dose of an "antibiotic" given to him on his first day of basic training for the military, the so called "peanut butter shot", although he has not been able to convince his physicians of this theory. Whether or not this patient has a chronic schizophrenia-like illness or an adverse reaction to antibiotics, this case is presented so that clinicians are aware that neurological and psychiatric side effects can occur as rare reactions to antibiotic therapy and that treatment with an anti-seizure drug concurrently used as a mood stabilizer may be warranted in such cases.
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PMID:Can antibiotics cause a psychosis?: Case report and review of the literature. 2818 85

Gottlieb Burckhardt was a 19th-century Swiss psychiatrist who introduced the psychosurgical method known as topectomy as a means to relieve the symptoms of aggression and agitation in individuals diagnosed with mental disease. Specifically, he performed topical excision of part of the cerebral cortex on 6 patients with chronic schizophrenia. Most of these patients became more approachable and easier to manage, but they also showed signs of aphasia or seizures, and 2 died soon after the surgery. Burckhardt's presentation of the results of his surgical procedures to the Berlin Medical Congress in 1890 caused an enormous controversy within the European medical community and resulted in his ostracism from it. He continued practicing, however and dispensing advice in his role as a mental hospital director, though he soon gave up his surgical endeavours. His innovative theory of higher cerebral functions anticipated the lobotomy procedure that was developed nearly half a century later by the neurologist Egas Moniz (1874-1955).
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PMID:Gottlieb Burckhardt (1836-1907): 19th-Century Pioneer of Psychosurgery. 3323 65