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Challenges in Treating Tardive Dyskinesia: How to Have Productive Conversations With Patients
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Key Takeaways
- Clinicians should evaluate patients' history with dopamine receptor blocking agents when managing tardive dyskinesia.
- Encouraging patients to articulate the impact of tardive dyskinesia on their lives can facilitate treatment acceptance.
Here's how to have productive conversations with patients with tardive dyskinesia in order to improve outcomes.
CONFERENCE REPORTER
"Tell me what your life is like with tardive dyskinesia."
Amber Hoberg, MSN, APRN, PHMNP-BC, shares challenges in treating tardive dyskinesia and how you can have conversations with patients to help them overcome the fear of treatment in order to achieve better quality of life.
First, she recommends clinicians check the fundamentals: what is the patient taking or have they ever been on a dopamine receptor blocking agent?
Another challenge is helping encourage patients to find treatment for this movement disorder even if they do not want to add another medication. She recommends taking out a piece of paper and having the patient share:
- What their life is like with tardive dyskinesia
- What tardive dyskinesia is preventing them from doing socially, recreationally, or vocationally
- What tardive dyskinesia is adding on top of their current stresses psychologically
Then she discusses what life will be like without this disorder if treatment is utilized correctly.
"I would say, if any challenge I have, it's talking to patients and making sure they have an understanding that there is treatment available," Hoberg shared with Psychiatric Times in Scottsdale, AZ.
Ms Hoberg is a board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner who works in San Antonio, Texas and surrounding areas.
