Nadège Chéry, PhD
Medical Writer/Consultant,
Snell Medical Communication Inc.
Montreal, Qc
The prescription of medications is among the most frequent and the most reliable forms of therapeutic strategy that physicians use for the treatment of patients with a variety of medical disorders.1 Unfortunately, many of these medications also produce side effects, especially in the geriatric population,1 some of which may be mild and relatively tolerable by most patients, and others, such as dyskinetic reactions, which are considered harmful.2,10 Drug-induced movement disorders represent an important iatrogenic condition that is occasionally encountered in clinical practice.2 These potentially disabling movement disorders are involuntary, they appear to be idiosyncratic extensions of the expected action of the drug and they are known to particularly affect the elderly patient.2-6 Among the devastating consequences of these disorders are involuntary movements, which may contribute to falls and fractures in the elderly, and social isolation, which can result from the limited mobility of an elderly individual.4,7
Nonetheless, movement disorders are often reversible; the withdrawal of the offending drug(s) usually leads to the alleviation of symptoms.3 Unfortunately, in some cases, discontinuing the offending drug may not be feasible.
