Drug Treatments for Schizophrenia

Professor David Lewis explains the difference between first and second generation drug treatments for schizophrenia.

So, of the anti-psychotic medications that we have available, the initial drug was Thorazin, which was actually discovered by accident in the early 1950s. These drugs are also called neuroleptics because they produce a number of motor side effects, including stiffness and rigidity and a tremor – symptoms that are similar to Parkinson’s disease. In an attempt to develop drugs with similar efficacy or similar effectiveness against the psychotic symptoms of the illness, second generation anti-psychotics were developed. These lack, generally, the motor side effects, so they don’t produce the stiffness and the tremor in individuals with schizophrenia. Unfortunately, we’re now discovering that they do have a side effect profile of their own, which produces some limitations in their use.