Treatment Providing the Clozapine Option as Standard of Care

VIDEO – HELPING SCHIZOPHRENICS –

July 18, 2022 – Dr. Jonathan Meyer: Hi, this is Dr. Jonathan Meyer, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and psychopharmacology consultant to various state hospital and first-episode psychosis programs here to talk about how to tailor treatment regimens for patients with schizophrenia.

The overarching statement is whether they are first episode or a more chronic schizophrenia patient, is to find out what are their goals of treatment? What is it that they want? Often, sometimes we as clinicians get locked into the mindset of symptom reduction as a goal. Well, symptom reduction is a step on the way to the goal, but what is it the patient wants to do? Does she want to have her own apartment? Does he want to go back to school? Does this lady want to go back and have a job or at least do some volunteer work? Does somebody want to learn a skill? Does somebody want to take up a sport? What is it that they would like to be doing, and work together to try to get them towards those goals knowing that medication is simply one tool in achieving those goals.

Once you understand the goal, then sometimes that conversation goes much better around medication because you can now reframe it not as something they have to do, but as something that will actually facilitate them achieving their goals, whatever they are.