Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Medications Can Cause Psych Adverse Effects

A number of medications intended to treat psychiatric disorders are themselves capable of causing psychiatric adverse effects. Unfortunately, these medication-induced adverse effects can be mistaken for a lack of therapeutic efficacy, leading to increased dose prescribing, leading to even more adverse effects. In addition, a number of medications not intended to treat psychiatric disorders are capable of causing psychiatric adverse effects. Following are some general catageories of medications that fall into these categories.

List can be found here.

1 comment:

Donald H. Marks said...

Various drugs with brain or neuropsychiatric adverse effects may predispose to committing a violent crime. The following prescription meds can affect judgment, thought, lead to dis-inhibition, and could cause violent outbursts, acute mania, aggression, agitation, homicidal thoughts and other harmful side effects.

• Antidepressants : Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Luvox, Pristiq, Effexor)
• Amphetamines and ADHD meds : Adderall, Ritalin, Strattera
• Quinolone antibiotics
• Benzodiazapines and Sleep Meds : Ambien, Lunesta, Halcion
• steroids Malaria : Lariam Accutane
• Anti-smoking : Chantix and Effexor
• Illicit drugs : cocaine, amphetamines …

These medications, alone or in combination (including with alcohol and illicit drugs) could be used in a criminal defense strategy. Physicians need to give particular consideration when prescribing these meds to persons at high risk of violence, and to give adequate warnings to patients, and perhaps to their families and to persons at risk from a medication-induced violence act.