Movement Disorders Induced by Neuroleptic Drugs

Neurology and psychiatry were once considered to be such closely related disciplines that one practitioner commonly treated patients suffering from illnesses of either type. This close relationship has waned, however, and neurologists and psychiatrists now maintain separate journals and professional organizations. Although this separation has advantages, new problems have been created. Nowhere are the problems more evident than in the field of neuropharmacology, where drugs used to treat neurological disease often affect psychiatric function and drugs used to treat psychiatric illness produce neurological symptoms. Behavioral disorders by neurologists and movement disorders by psychiatrists are increasingly reported in their own respective specialty journals. However, clinicians in one area often use vague or technically imprecise terminology when describing the other field. As a result, a psychiatrist reading a neurologist’s report of a behavior or a neurologist reading a psychiatrist’s report of an abnormal movement cannot easily understand the description in terms of classification and presumed pathophysiology or pathogenesis. In this chapter, we hope to contribute to a reciprocal educational effort directed toward ameliorating this problem. This chapter will discuss drug-induced abnormal movements associated with the administration of neuroleptic agents and their classification, description, and pharmacology.