Transient improvement of tardive dyskinesia induced with rTMS

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been effective in the treatment of psychiatric and movement disorders.1 Tardive dyskinesia (TD) is a persistent motor adverse event due to long-term neuroleptic exposure with a prevalence of about 30% among psychiatric patients. We describe a patient with resistant depression who underwent TMS of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a main target for stimulation in depression.1 This resulted in a complete yet transient improvement of the TD symptomatology. A 65-year-old woman had recurrent major depression of 30 years’ duration resulting in multiple hospitalizations and poor response to pharmacotherapy. During her last hospitalization, due to a depressive episode with psychotic symptoms, the patient was admitted with a therapy of amitriptyline 120 mg/day, lamotrigine 200 mg/day, and thioridazine 75 mg/day, to which she had not responded in the prior 5 months. Amitriptyline was increased up to 200 mg/day with …