[Pilot study on the effects of an antiparkinson anticholinergic agent during depressive conditions]

This pilot stuyd was made in order to search for the efficiency of an anticholinergic antiparkinsonian drug, orphenadrine, at high doses (300 to 500 mg/day, orally) in 10 depressed patients. This efficiency seems to be clear and appears quickly: with melancolic patients in particular, we observed 4 very good results in less than 5 days. Nevertheless, besides peripheral anticholinergic side-effects a transitory but very marked spatio-temporal disorganization, with increase of locomotor-activity and sometimes hallucinations, was observed in most patients. Nevertheless, it seems that this therapeutic should be carried on whenever other antidepressant therapeutics failed.