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1/5 A friend brought his mother to the hospital. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's & Parkinson disease. She had signs of both diseases, but this confluence is rare. By looking at the history, I found out that she was taking many drugs & that it all started with #anxiety...
2/5 ...a GP prescribed a comercial formula that combines a low dose of antipsychotic & a benzodiacepine. The patient developed Parkinsonism as a side effect. She suspended the drug & went to a neurologist who thought that it was really Parkinson disease, and gave her l-dopa...
3/5 The use of this drug induced hallucinations, so the family stopped the drugs & went to a psychiatrist, who made a diagnosis of psychosis & gave her an antipsychotic. This took her back to the state of Parkinsonism. An anticholinergic drug was used, which in turn...
4/5 ...provoked a state of cognitive impairment, mainly a disturbance in memory. I've told you the story in 4 tweets but these events unfolded over a 1 year, with "professionals" that charged $$ for their services in private practice... all I had to do was deprescribe slowly
5/5 all the drugs, one by one. In 3 months she recovered her motor skills & cognitive abilities, & she was not psychotic. I'm sure many psychiatrists, geriatricians & neurologists have seen stories like this. At times, good medical practice is about correcting iatrogenic harm 🤷🏻♂️
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