Despite the pressing need for treatment, medications currently on the market treat only one of the symptoms of the disorder (psychosis), and do not address the debilitating cognitive symptoms. In part, treatment options are limited because the biological mechanisms underlying the illness have not been understood. The sole drug target for existing treatments was found serendipitously, and no medications with fundamentally new mechanisms of action have been developed since the 1950s.
Also there’s new research if you check out the article. Something about pathways controlling synaptic plasticity. That’s where it lost me.
Part of it is the money or lack of it. Another thing is that efforts to treat other parts of the disease have not been successful. There have been a number of drugs that have not made it through the testing process. As a side note I’d like to say that some of the side effects of drugs that are considered to be worth discontinuing a med were what I experienced when I took a drug that dealt well with some of those symptoms. I’m not saying I disagree that the side effects were not worth making it discontinued. I’m just saying you may be scarier than you think when you are “well”.
I’ve spent the last 25 years being told that some new miracle med is probably around the corner. So far, it hasn’t been. I’ve had to learn to push past the illness and do things for myself that the meds weren’t. I’d still be in a managed living situation if I had just kept waiting for the perfect med.