Continuous maintenance antipsychotic treatment in schizophrenia

During recent years concerns have been raised about the long-term cumulative and potentially negative impact of continuous maintenance antipsychotic treatment of schizophrenia on the human body, especially on the central nervous system. This paper aims at providing a summary of literature data on continuous maintenance treatment for practicing physicians. The results show that continuous maintenance antipsychotic treatment can significantly decrease the risk of relapses and improve the long-term outcome in schizophrenia. Regarding the long-term effects of antipsychotic treatment on the central nervous system, however, further research is needed to answer the question: are brain morphological and functional changes associated with the disease or the treatment or both? 'Based on the data available, low antipsychotic doses are effective and safe while high doses of antipsychotics should be avoided. This review concludes that the minimum effective doses of antipsychotics should be administered for continuous maintenance treatment.