What if you knew that being bipolar or schizophrenic, black, diabetic and female made you more susceptible to the neuroleptic, involuntary movement condition, called tardive dyskinesia (TD)?
According to MD Magazine, some modifiable comorbidities for TD may include diabetes, smoking, and alcohol and substance abuse, according to a recent meta-analysis. However, some of the non-modifiable risk factors that the researchers determined were patient-related — such as older age, female sex, and white or African descent. They also noted that Asian race “seems to be a protective factor against tardive dyskinesia, compared with other races.”
Of the risk factors related to patient illness, some of the variables leading to TD were longer illness duration, intellectual disability, and brain damage, negative symptoms of schizophrenia, mood disorders, and cognitive symptoms. The most significant links between negative schizophrenia symptoms and tardive dyskinesia remain unconfirmed after the analysis, just as significant links between cognitive symptoms and tardive dyskinesia are inconsistent.
Researchers from Padua, Italy and Long Island, New York conducted a literature review of 41 papers discussing risk factors for TD, in hopes of categorizing modifiable and non-modifiable patient and illness-related variables and comorbidities.
The results show that most risk factors for TD are