Patients with schizophrenia or mood disorders may be somewhat resistant to taking their medication.

Patients with schizophrenia or mood disorders may be somewhat resistant to taking their medication.  Schizophrenic patients often take meds for a while, get better, start to believe that they don’t need the meds and then stop taking them.  Eventually their symptoms come back and they end up back on their meds again. Those with mood disorders often resist taking meds from the beginning due to the social stigma associated with “being crazy” or from the fear of becoming suicidal as a result of the meds(as has been widely reported in the media as a potential side effect).  What would you suggest we do as a society to support patients who genuinely need to take psychotropic medications?

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Schizophrenia is a chronic, debilitating mental disorder that affects approximately 1% of all persons in the US [1]. Symptoms include — but are not limited to–-hallucinations, delusions, movement disorders, cognitive impairment, and lack of pleasure in everyday life. Onset of schizophrenia typically occurs before the age of 45 years; it is equally likely to affect men and women as well as members of all ethnic groups [2]. Antipsychotic drugs are the mainstay of treatment. Older medications, including haloperidol and chlorpromazine, often cause acute and chronic extrapyramidal side effects (e.g., rigidity, tremors, tardive dyskinesia). Second-generation (often termed “atypical”) antipsychotic drugs infrequently induce these side effects….Noncompliance is an important predictor of hospitalization risk. Following inpatient treatment and discharge from the community, many patients become poorly compliant with therapy. Several reasons for poor compliance have been hypothesized, including…