[Course of psychopathologic and extrapyramidal motor symptoms during long-term treatment of schizophrenic patients with psycholeptic drugs (author's transl)].
65 chronic-schizophrenic outpatients were treated with fluphenazinedecanoate for 24 months. Hallucinations and delusions remitted between week 24 and 36, formal disturbances of thinking occurred in 50% of the patients up to the 24th week, mood disorders and disorders and schizophrenic changes in personality could only gradually be controlled. In the first 3 months of treatment the incidence and intensity of rigor grew up to the critical point after 24 weeks of treatment; by the 60th week of treatment it had completely vanished. Akathisia reached its peak after the first and the 36th week and two different populations could be distinguished. 8% of the patients showed dyskinetic reactions up to the 12th week; 20% of the patients showed hyper- and dyskinesia after 72 weeks of treatment. 30 to 40% of the patients required anticholinergics between the 12th and 48th weeks; after the 84th week this medication was no longer necessary.