Persistent Dyskinesia After Long-Term Treatment With Neuroleptics in Japan

The studies on drug-induced persistent dyskinesia in Japan began only in the late nineteen-sixties, while the first historical description of the symptom by French authors was published in 1959. Then, at first, the literatures re-ported by Japanese workers were briefly reviewed and the prevalences, char-acteristics of the patients and correlations between the manifestation of the symptoms and characteristics of psychotropic drugs were summarized.Secondly, two clinically important problems were discussed from the findings of 19 dyskinetic patients in Minakawa Mental Hospital. The first problem was concerned with the reversibility of persistent dyskinesia and the second with the relationship between persistent dyskinesia and other types of extrapyramidal reactions.In conclusion, it was stressed that the earlier diagnosis and earlier re-moval of the drug were important for the prophylaxis of irreversible persistent dyskinesia and that close relationship of persistent dyskinesia with the other types of extrapyramidal reaction (acute dyskinesia, akathisia and parkin-sonism) should be taken into consideration for the prediction of the symptom.