F077 Pharmacological treatment of irritability in Huntington’s disease: a longitudinal cohort study
Year: 2024
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: Background Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) occur in nearly all Huntington’s Disease (HD) patients during the disease course. Irritability is a common NPS and is often the first sign of the disease. Aims To provide an overview of pharmacological treatments used for irritability, agitation and aggression in HD and their effects on irritability as assessed by the Problem Behavior Assessment – shortform (PBA-s) irritability subscale. Methods We conducted an analysis in a large database of HD patients, Enroll-HD on the treatment of irritability, agitation and aggressive behaviour. The number of prescriptions per medication class and treatment effect on the PBA-s irritability subscale were reported. Results Of the 25550 patients in Enroll-HD, 2292 (9.0%) used medication for irritability, agitation or aggressive behaviour. Antipsychotics were most frequently prescribed (4004 prescriptions, 52,0%), followed by antidepressants (1459 prescriptions, 18.9%). For all indications, antipsychotics were the most frequenly prescribed drugs. Antidepressants were more frequently prescribed for irritability (25.4% of all prescriptions compared to 5.5% and 5.9% for agitation and aggression, respectively), anxiolytics for agitation (38.5% of all prescriptions compared to 9.9% and 5.2% for irritability and aggression, respectively) and antipsychotics for aggression (77.0% of all prescriptions compared to 49.9% and 48.1% for irritability and agitation, respectively). One year of treatment with antidepressants and antipsychotics resulted in significant improvement on the PBA-s irritability subscale (reduction from 7.26 to 5.05 and 8.16 to 5.13, respectively). Conclusions Antipsychotics and antidepressants are the most commonly prescribed medications for irritability, agitation and agression and significantly reduce irritability as assessed by the PBA-s.
Institutions: Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht University
Language: English
Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4402374651