Addressing Antipsychotic Non-Adherence in Tardive Dyskinesia

Medication non-adherence often affects treatment plans that include antipsychotics, particularly alongside a tardive dyskinesia (TD) diagnosis. Psych Congress Network sat down with Desiree Matthews, PHMNP-BC, at Psych Congress Elevate 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada, to discuss her clinical experience handling cases of TD. In this video, Matthews discusses the high rates of antipsychotic non-adherence and how tolerability affects treatment success.

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>>WATCH: Desiree Mathews discuss Provider Misconceptions About Tardive Dyskinesia HERE.

Read the Transcript:

Desiree Matthews, PMHNP-BC: Hello. My name is Desiree Matthews and I work as a psychiatric nurse practitioner out of a community mental health center called Monarch in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I treat adult patients generally with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, as well as drug-induced movement disorders.

In psychiatry, we certainly have high rates of antipsychotic non-adherence, and I don't think that's a big surprise to anyone.

Generally, that plays into the tolerability of these agents. There's new evidence out there that shows that patients living with tardive dyskinesia do have high rates of medication non-adherence and that the TD actually plays a role in that.

For instance, there was a survey given to patients with tardive dyskinesia, and they reported in relatively high numbers that they had actually stopped going to their treating provider altogether to get care for their primary mental health illness. Really, the peer influence in the survey showed that these patients living with TD actually told someone else to stop taking their antipsychotic medication.

So, even that peer-to-peer influence can lead to non-adherence and just stopping and dropping out of treatment altogether. As we know, this is not a good prognosis for their underlying mental health condition. 

Desiree Matthews, PMHNP-BC, is a board certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. She received her Bachelor's of Nursing from University at Buffalo and her Master's of Nursing at Stony Brook University. She currently resides in Charlotte, NC and practices at Monarch, a community mental health center providing telepsychiatry services to adult patients. Clinical interests include treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, treatment resistant unipolar depression and drug induced movement disorders including tardive dyskinesia. She has provided faculty expertise and insight in the development of a clinical screener for TD called MIND-TD.