Clinical Review: Updates on Antipsychotics and Alzheimer’s Disease

Drs. Jonathan M. Meyer and Rachelle Smith

Discuss the relationship between obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes, and explain why all are more prevalent in people with mental illness than in the general population; Determine the risk for obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes associated with various atypical antipsychotics medications; Monitor mentally ill patients for obesity, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes, and develop an appropriate course of treatment should these disorders occur; Describe cognitive changes that occur with normal aging and with Alzheimer’s disease; and Discuss current controversies in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.