Risperidone for the treatment of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia

Risperidone offers physicians the unique combination of extensive, publishe d clinical experience and a good safety profile for treating patients with dementia who have symptoms of aggression, agitation, and psychosis. Numerou s open-label and, more recently, placebo-controlled trials have documented the efficacy of risperidone in the management of behavioral and psychologic al symptoms of dementia. These trials also show that risperidone is better tolerated than conventional neuroleptic agents. Comparatively, patients tre ated with risperidone experience substantially fewer side effects, includin g extrapyramidal symptoms, cognitive toxicity, and tardive dyskinesia.