Treatment patterns in schizophrenia: Clinical case of successful management with a series of long acting injectable antipsychotics

Abstract

Introduction

We report the successful management of a 57-year-old woman with a 20 year diagnostic of paranoid schizophrenia (first visit November, 1995). She presented several comorbidities (arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus and morbid obesity), with a history of five previous hospitalizations (1995, 2012, January and May 2014, and April 2016).

Aims/methods

The patient was always prescribed depot antipsychotics: she was treated for 14 years with Zuclopentixol depot (discontinued due to dermic adverse reactions and weight gain). After a period with oral paliperidone (from 2012 until 2013) and due to lack of adherence to oral therapy, in August 2013 she was prescribed paliperidone palmitate. The treatment was discontinued after nine months (May 2014) due to weight gain, a significant increase of serum prolactin levels and two psychotic relapses that led to hospital admissions.

Results

She was then prescribed Fluphenazine decanoate depot for one year and 4 months, but she was switched to Aripiprazole once monthly (AOM) in September 2015 to avoid metabolic syndrome.

Conclusions

Non-personalized antipsychotic treatment in a patient with a complicated comorbidity history can result in lack of compliance and a risk of relapse, and in a worsening of her medical conditions, with the consequential negative impact in her functioning and quality of life. Based on our results, the treatment with AOM resulted in a positive evolution of the patient, with a good tolerability profile, in an improvement of treatment-caused adverse events (weight loss, and prolactin serum levels normalization); all factors that enable treatment adherence and good clinical response.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.