Antipsychotics in older patients. A safety perspective

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Nov 6, 2026

Development of a Virtual Reality Assessment of Everyday Living Skills
10:32

Development of a Virtual Reality Assessment of Everyday Living Skills

Published on: April 23, 2014

B G Pollock1, B H Mulsant

  • 1Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, Pennsylvania, USA.

Drugs & Aging
|April 1, 1995
PubMed

Related Concept Videos

Antipsychotic Drugs: Therapeutic Uses and Side Effects01:21

Antipsychotic Drugs: Therapeutic Uses and Side Effects

Antipsychotic drugs primarily block dopamine and serotonin receptors and cholinergic, adrenergic, and histaminergic receptors, thereby reducing hallucinations and delusions in conditions like schizophrenia. However, they can trigger unwanted extrapyramidal effects such as dystonias, Parkinson-like symptoms, and tardive dyskinesia.
Despite these side effects, antipsychotics are used therapeutically for various purposes, including managing schizophrenia, preventing nausea and vomiting, curbing...
Drug Dosing: Geriatric Patients01:15

Drug Dosing: Geriatric Patients

Elderly individuals encompass a diverse population with varying degrees of age-related physiological changes. Defining the elderly presents challenges, as the geriatric population is often arbitrarily categorized as individuals older than 65. However, many individuals in this group lead active and healthy lives, with an increasing number surpassing 85 years and falling into the older elderly category. Physiological changes associated with aging impact performance capacity and homeostatic...
Pharmacokinetics in Geriatric Patients: Effect of Age on Drug Absorption01:22

Pharmacokinetics in Geriatric Patients: Effect of Age on Drug Absorption

As individuals age, their body's physiology evolves, affecting drug pharmacokinetics. The most apparent changes occur in the gastrointestinal tract, where an increase in gastric pH, a delay in gastric emptying, and a reduction in gastrointestinal motility are observed. Remarkably, these changes do not substantially modify the absorption of orally administered drugs, particularly those absorbed via passive diffusion.Transdermal drug delivery emerges as a highly viable method for older adults due...
Pharmacokinetics in Geriatric Patients: Effect of Age on Drug Distribution01:00

Pharmacokinetics in Geriatric Patients: Effect of Age on Drug Distribution

Drug distribution in the human body is influenced by several factors, including plasma protein concentration, body composition, blood flow, tissue-protein concentration, and tissue fluid pH. Among these, changes in plasma protein concentration and body composition due to aging significantly affect how drugs are distributed within the body. Specifically, aging is associated with a decrease in albumin levels by about 10% and an increase in α1-acid glycoprotein levels. These alterations are not...
Pharmacodynamics in Geriatric Patients: Effects of Age01:27

Pharmacodynamics in Geriatric Patients: Effects of Age

Age-related pharmacokinetic changes are extensively documented, but understanding age-related pharmacodynamic alterations is relatively limited. This knowledge gap can be partly attributed to the complexity of developing appropriate measures of drug responses compared to bioanalytical methods for determining drug concentrations.Most information regarding age-related differences in human pharmacodynamics originates from cross-sectional studies. However, these studies assume that observed mean...
Drug Therapy01:28

Drug Therapy

The advent of drug therapy has profoundly shaped modern mental health care, providing targeted treatments for a range of psychological disorders. Psychotherapeutic drugs, classified into antianxiety, antidepressant, and antipsychotic medications, address symptoms across anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and schizophrenia. While these medications have transformed patient outcomes, they require careful management due to their potential side effects and limitations.
Antianxiety Medications