I think typical potent APs greatly reduce cognition, at least I experienced a massive loss of cognition on haloperidol. On Invega I dont feel much of a cognition loss
Once I got on medication, I graduated from college with a high gpa and went to grad school as well. I do believe it improves cognition. But it doesn’t make you smarter. Just gives you your best potential before becoming ill.
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I described my cognitive issues to a pdoc on Twitter, and he said it was a ‘localised’ rather than a global impairment. A possible sign of a learning difficulty(UK terminology) . I’ve never done well when it comes to mental rotation,visual short memory,spatial perception and digit symbol substitution. On the other hand I do much better verbally, mathematically(apart from being crap at geometry) and at pattern recognition. I do very well for my age when it comes to reaction time and consistency of reaction time. The latter being better than the former when it comes to estimating intelligence.
The APs that had the worst effect on cognition for me were the heavy doses of 1st generation APs like largactil and mellaril. that were used at one time
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When my sleep starts to recover and I know that my typical antipsychotics depo cover the positives Them I’m going to ask my phd if she will substitute the 300 mg Seroquel that I take with 30 mg. Mertazapine. I dislike the idea off being on 300 mg qutiapine for ocd. I am sure that the less antipsychotics I’m on the better my cognition will get… one studie with Haldol combined with Mertazapine showed markedly improvements on the negative and general pathology in schizophrenia. If atypically antipsychotics worked so well how comes that 80 % of all schizophrenics belongs to the 20 percent off the population who performed most poorly on the intelligence tests.
I know that what I write here r probably will hurt other users but I had to bring it into the light because I overestimated my brain. Now I finally realize that I’m not a smart person.
I wouldn’t say that. Everyone is smart in their own way. It’s not about IQ tests. There are other ways of being intelligent.
I read a study that said postmorbid iq drop was 7. You are more likey to have a lower premorbid iq drop in conjunction with the postmorbid iq reduction. But you don’t decline from 100 to 79. I agree with @firemonkey I’d like to see where you got those numbers from.
That said it is pretty devastating to find out the impact it has. It’s not something the pdocs generally tell you obviously for various reasons, having that knowledge probably isn’t going to improve your recovery.
Every episode of psychosis makes you worse and impairs your ability to recover. There is an iq drop when you develop schizophrenia. I think it stands to reason there is a correlation between number of episode of psychosis and impairments in iq. As a generalisation I think of psychotic episodes as a form brain damage. To me that is the takeaway. I think that if someone told me that psychotic episodes were a form of brain damage when I was first episode I might have thought twice about taking the medication to start with. Probably wouldn’t have changed anything but I would have thought about it. I can see this being a good argument for taking the medication to prevent psychotic release even when you are stable and not experiencing positive symptoms.
I agree with sweetpotatofries though, it’s not all about iq, it doesn’t measure a lot of things. Some of the richest people in the world don’t have incredibly high iq. Why is that? Why aren’t the smartest people in the world the richest ones also? Obviously there is a lot more to being successful then having high iq. Ultimately you measure your own success and iq doesn’t tell you how successful you are.
Gammafox I’m glad that you provided me with those new informations. You see I believed that my cognition got better and better as the years passed because I got my injection and thereby avoided relapses(I’ve only had two relapses in 12 years). I believed that I had been deluded with grandiosity when I got those infos about cognition and stupidity because I’ve always considered myself as a man of an average intelligence.
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I saw an article on lesswrong saying education is essentially a form of virtue signalling. As iq is strongly correlated with educational attainment and job sucess they advocated abandoning university education and using iq test scores. Obviously high iq is major impact factor but I think it only helps but only to a certain point. The fact remains that the most successful people aren’t the ones with the highest iq. However I think it is fair to say most successful people have high iq. The richest people are all highly intelligent in their own way. These things aren’t directly measured by iq. ‘The curse of knowledge’ can be a reasoning for people’s in ability to relate to each other. This is relevant to politicians. Look at the most two recent american presidents you wouldn’t necessarily say the are the people highest iq people in the world. That doesn’t prevent their appeal to others, which goes to show. Arguably the us president is the most powerful person in the world. Many to people think trump is an idiot and I might agree however he manifest his position through having many other talents and resources. To say there is no intelligence in the way he went about things is contrary to the evidence. For example his style lacks the traditional trappings but it appeals to people. Regardless of whether you like it or not you have to concede that he wieldeds a considerable amount of power in the world, inspite of his iq.
The political repression of artists is another example of the power that they wielded in being able to communicate a message.
Personally I think your success is determined by your ability to bring about change in the world. That doesn’t necessarily mean having a high salary or ivy league education. Nor does it necessarily mean having a high iq. It goes without saying that obviously all those things play in your favour but they aren’t deal breakers
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No news to me i was always dumb lol
Seroquel helped me at first but im not on it anymore and so does Olanzapine but only at first and im not on mega doses
Now I disagree with the neuro scientist in his point of view on schizophrenia. not being able to recall information has nothing to do with stupidity. Bad memory is a cognitive symptom that doesn’t make people stupid but is a disadvantage in a iq test that results in a lower in score.
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In my experience APs reduce cognition. I am unable to program for long periods of time or study on them.
I think they improve rationalisation but if they are heavily sedating they are going to impair concentration
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Seroquel helps my cognition. Helps me function better, concentrate better, feel better. But unlike most, I need more neurotransmitter restoration/replenishment. Not less. But, I was assigned a new Doc who wants to add Geodon with my Seroquel so I’ll see how that works. Since I had dystonic reaction to Abilify years ago, I guess Docs just kept me on Seroquel all these years and didn’t want to risk EPS reaction on a different AP.
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Which ones would you recommend?
The right way is to check research comparing antipsychotics. The best is clozapine, Amisulpride, olanzapine And abilify