Antipsychotic drugs

Antipsychotic drugs

Antipsychotic drugs can control psychotic symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations, and thought disorders that can occur with schizophrenia, mania, and other psychoses.

By any other name

Drugs used to treat psychoses have several different names, including:

• antipsychotic, because they can eliminate signs and symptoms of psychoses
• major tranquilizer, because they can calm an agitated patient
• neuroleptic, because they have an adverse neurobiologic effect that causes abnormal body movements.

Two major groups

Regardless of what they’re called, all antipsychotic drugs belong to one of two major groups:

• atypical antipsychotics, which include aripiprazole, cloza-pine, olanzapine, paliperidone, quetiapine, risperidone, and ziprasidone
• typical antipsychotics, which include phenothiazines and nonphenothiazines.