Study: Low long-term use of Anxiety / Anti-depressant psychiatric drugs does not appear to affect cognition in schizophrenia, Anti-psychotic Meds at High Doses Long Term Does

A long-term study has found that low cumulative exposure to benzodiazepine and antidepressant medications does not seem to affect cognition in schizophrenia. However, long-term high-dose use of antipsychotic drugs seemed to be associated with poorer cognition, whereas a relatively long break in antipsychotic use was associated with better cognitive functioning. This work, the first to follow lifetime exposure to benzodiazepines and antidepressant in schizophrenia, is presented at the ECNP conference in Paris, and it is also published in the peer-reviewed journal European Psychiatry.

Schizophrenia affects around 0.3-0.7% of people at some point in their life, or 21 million people worldwide. It is most often a lifelong disorder, requiring long-term treatment and rehabilitation and long-term use of antipsychotic medication. However, drug trials are usually of short duration, for example antipsychotic trials last up to 2-3 years. As many medicines are used over long periods and may be linked with significant side-effects, it is important to be able to follow these effects in the long-term.

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We should note that because of the observational setting of our study and small sample size, definitive conclusions are difficult to draw

I wouldn’t put much faith in this study really.

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Yes - its a small number of people in the study - so I’d say hold off on making a judgement in this area:

The researchers followed participants from the Northern Finnish Birth Cohort 1966 - meaning that all the persons had been born in 1966. 60 of the participants had been diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, and had received different medications over the long-term. The individuals underwent an extensive series of cognitive tests when they were 43 years old, having had an average medicine use lasting 16.5 years.

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