Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology

Akathisia related to very low dose risperidone: a case report

Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology 2014; 24: Supplement S106-S106
Read: 2275 Published: 18 February 2021

Akathisia is a neurological disorder characterized as needing of continuous movement accompanied by endogenous feeling of anxiety. Even though Akathisia is generally accepted to be a side effect of typical antipsychotics, it may also be caused by new generation antipsychotic drugs. Risperidone is an atypical antipsychotic. It has a low extrapyramidal system (EPS) side effects with low doses. In this paper, we report a female patient with EPS side effects caused by a dose of risperidone as low as 1 mg/day. MG was a 78 years old female patient. The patient had anxiety symptoms for the last 33 years and in the last 20 years she has been using 5 or 10 mg/day diazepam. Upon reporting to a psychiatrist with benzodiazepine addiction 2 years ago, she was given risperidone 1 mg/day. 6 or 7 months after receiving the drug she had complaints of not being able to sit still, moving her legs repeatedly while sitting, moving her arms unintentionally, sweating, burping. She applied to neurology clinic with these symptoms besides her anxiety. During her interview, she was observed to be not able to sit still and was repeatedly moving her feet. Her steps were obviously short and were approximately half of normal. Because of low social-cultural level of the patient and her family, a proper story could not be obtained. Laboratory tests revealed no significance and the patient was concluded to suffer from as tardive akathisia caused by risperidone. The dose of risperidone was gradually decreased while quetiapine was increased. Also 0.375 mg/day alprazolam was added to the treatment. During her first month supervision, she had her anxiety resolved, was observed to be more interested to the interviewer, was free of involuntary feet movement. At present, antipsychotics are frequently used agents. Atypical antipsychotics are more preferred than typicals due to their less extrapyramidal side effects. Besides psychosis they have also indications as treatment augmenting drugs in dementia, depression, anxiety disorder or Obsessive compulsive disorder. It must not be forgotten that atypical antipsychotic agents might lead to very discomforting side effects like akathisia, may be much rarer compared to typical antipsychotics, and also these side effects may appear with unexpectedly low doses in elderly patients. Thus we targeted to alert the clinicians for akathisia symptoms that may be neglected or confused with other psychiatric disorders.

EISSN 2475-0581