If we cannot be clever, we can always be kind. ~Alfred Fripp

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
-HH The Dali Lama

In this world, there is nothing softer or thinner than water. But to compel the hard and unyielding, it has no equal. That the weak overcomes the strong, that the hard gives way to the gentle -- this everyone knows. Yet no one asks accordingly.
-Lao=Tse

I don't know either. Clozaril appears to have helped my daughter remain out of locked down hospitals; thus the humane.
Though how humane is it that she has lost all cognitive ability, regardless of what got her to this point, one year on Clozaril has left her unable to read and remains in and out of a trapped mind.
The only balance I can strike in my own mind about this efficacy of medication and cognitive impairment, is to look at being free outside of a hospital as a baseline to treating her humanely:
But at what cost? Which leaves me back at the first question: how do we define humane?

When Marvin Swartz presented these results in a lecture at UVA, a young psychiatrist (resident I think) was so dismayed that the promise of cognitive improvement was proven false. But Marvin Swartz wasn't dismayed as far as I could see, in fact he made the amazing to me statement at one point that he doubted the capacity of everyone with schizophrenia because he believes all people with schizophrenia have a very low I.Q.!

Of course I have never heard an actual patient say they found that the atypicals improved their cognitive skills and always thought it was bunk. How can a drug that causes permanent changes to one's brain structure, otherwise known as brain damage, improve one's intellectual abilities? Doesn't make sense.

Swartz also reported that when used at lower doses than when first on the market, the typicals didn't cause a single new case of Extra Pyramidal Symptoms, so it looks like if used at a reasonable dose, the typicals may not cause T.D. at the rate they are thought to. The gist of the presentation was that the most "effective" anti-psychotics were also the most dangerous and the response from the audience was that we need new drugs. My unspoken response was that there will never be a perfect pill and we need to be offering a lot more than pills to folks to help them get their lives back. But the studies on how much psychotherapy helps people with schizophrenia and mood disorders are rarely done and even when done, as at Austen Riggs recently, get zero media attention.

I just posted THIS text yesterday on pharmalot.com
We forget that Haldol shrinks the mental patients brain. Which the patient needs of course. Who doesn't need a shrunk brain?
Leiberman is/was in the CATIE panel as well.

Haloperidol, not Olanzapine, Linked With Brain Shrinkage in Schizophrenia:By Roberta Friedman, PhD
NEW ORLEANS, LA — November 11, 2003 — Haloperidol may exacerbate the shrinking of the brain that scientists are beginning to link with schizophrenia. Findings of a multi-center study comparing first- and second-generation treatment for schizophrenia were announced here November 9th at Neuroscience 2003, the Society for Neuroscience 33rd Annual Meeting

Dr. Lieberman
“Haloperidol is better than nothing,” he said, for patients with schizophrenia.

Guess what? Maybe we try an unmedicated approach or else just the bare minimum of meds when psychosis is really raging. Reduce stimulation to a minimum in some quiet, dark, soothing environment and then try using the old empathic alliance approach. It's too bad so many psych professionals are clueless when it comes to empathy. A study was released recently showing that 15 year outcomes for schizophrenics (i.e. those with psychotic symptoms) were better for those who were NOT medicated than those who were. See here:
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/05/15-year-follow-up-schizophrenia-study.html

Judging by how much smarter I got after coming off of zyprexa, I'd say anti-p's hurt rather than help cognition. It's hard to do much thinking when all you can do is sleep.

Why do neuroleptics if you can do orthomolecular treatments?

Western psychiatry, in a giant experiment for which no valid medical test has been devised, earns a very rich living by doling out dubious diagnoses, dangerous drugs and dire warnings that these will always be needed.
QUACKS!

Prescribing atypicals is all about drugging people into submission. You'll often hear Little Timmy's mother singing the praises of Olanzapine or whatever. Why don't we ever hear from Little Timmy? Let him tell us how great the drug is. The fact is, Little Timmy's a cabbage and won't be appearing in public anytime soon.

Eli Lilly,maker of CATIE'S worst side effect drug Zyprexa - which killed my son of profound hyperglycemia - and all the other atypical makers, are now applying to our protectors at the FDA to lower the approved age of all atypicals to adelescence. Over a million children are already taking these drugs off label (Dr. Cooper - Vanderbilt), but this step will make it "legal" and will be followed with asking approval down to birth. I believe one reason this is happening is that the SSRIs got a black box warning for children up to 18 after a long fight, and now age 24, so sales there have slacked off. Therefore, a new poison is needed.

I can concentrate so much better on 25mg of Seroquel. Of course, I could concentrate very well before, and I don't have schizophrenia. A lot of schizophrenics are quite positive about the atypicals. Go to askapatient and read up. Esp the women, they have gotten a lot better.