PSYCH 380 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Phenothiazine, Antipsychotic, Antihistamine
20 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
For much of human history, people with schizophrenia and other severe mental disorders were considered beyond help. For more than half of the 20th century, people with schizophrenia were institutionalized in public mental hospitals. Because patients failed to respond to traditional therapies, the primary goals of the hospitals were to give them shelter, food, water, and clothing. Discovery of antipsychotic medications dates back to the 1940s, when researchers developed antihistamine drugs for allergies. It was discovered that one group of antihistamines, phenothiazines, could be used to calm patients about to undergo surgery. Since the discovery of the phenothiazines, other kinds of antipsychotic drugs have been developed: those developed throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are now referred to as conventional antipsychotic drugs. These drugs are also known as neuroleptic drugs, because they often produce undesired movement effects similar to symptoms of neurological disorder: drugs developed in recent years are known as atypical or second- generation antipsychotics.
