Pharmacological treatment of anxiety in the medically ill patient

Treatment guidelines which are available are intended for treatment of medically healthy patients. There is little information in the literature regarding the treatment of patients who are medically ill. Anxiety and anxiety disorders are frequently encountered in patients with serious medical disorders. These medically ill patients may have substantial changes in pharmacokinetic factors as a result of their current illness or treatment. Also, treatment considerations related to their accompanying medical treatment(s) are sometimes required. These various factors may result in a different initial choice of agents, alterations in the dosage of a given agent, or even preclude the use of some standard agents. In this chapter, we first present a review of the current psychopharmacologic treatment of anxiety disorders. In the second section, we review the potential pharmacokinetic consequences of serious hepatic renal, pulmonary and cardiac disease relevant to the pharmacological treatment of anxiety.