Weekly Report 29: Olanzapine

Since I decided to study Forensic Psychiatry this year, I have been looking into more than just the psychological and legal aspects of it. Recently, I have researched various psychiatric medications I've come across during my mentor visits. So far, I've looked into multiple anti-psychotic medications, and benzodiazepines, to list a few. Today, I would like to hilight one of the important anti-psychotic drugs I have learned about.

Zyprexa, which is also known as olanzapine, is a commonly used antipsychotic medication used to treat depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. Additionally, zyprexa can help individuals become more active, less aggressive, think more positively and can help decrease hallucinations.This drug helps individual’s taking it by affecting chemicals in their brain. To specify, olanzapine restores chemical equilibrium to the brain by balancing certain natural hormones. However, as useful as this medication may be for some, it comes with a myriad of negative side effects. Not only can zyprexa cause thinking and reaction impairment, but it also causes hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), dehydration, overheating, weight gain,neuroleptic malignant syndrome, tremors, seizures and weight gain. Surprisingly, a very common side effect of most antipsychotic drugs, is constipation. Some of these side effects cause chronic and reversible medical issues such as diabetes, heart disease and dyskinesia (voluntary movement impairment). Moreover, it is important that individuals with dementia or dementia related conditions not take this medication because it can increase an individual's risk of death.

There are numerous other drugs I've learned about this year, and I will blog about them each individually in future posts.

~Shrinidhi Joshi

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