Target symptom

With target symptom is a drug, especially by psychopharmacotherapy targeted to be treated symptom such. B. hallucination or delusion understood. The treatment is not so much about influencing the causal conditions of the triggering of (mental) illness as it is about influencing an individual symptom .

meaning

Schematic representation of the spectrum of effects of various antidepressant psychotropic drugs ( thymoleptics ) with overlap with the antipsychotic effect in schizophrenia ( neuroleptic subcomponent ) - according to Kielholz and Huber

The term got its meaning from the treatment with neuroleptics that became common from 1955 and the resulting discussion as to whether certain side effects such as e.g. B. the disturbing Parkinson's symptoms represent a necessary side effect or whether they represent a purely coincidental phenomenon that should be remedied, for example, by the prescription of an anti- Parkinson drug . Due to the very complex effects and side effects of neuroleptics, it was necessary to differentiate the therapeutically desirable influences of the so-called target symptoms from the many undesirable side effects. Thereby, quite contradicting points of view emerged: On the one hand, there was the unresolved question of the unity of the disease or the unitary psychosis with regard to the endogenous psychosis . As a result, the treatment of endogenous psychosis was often seen as an inadmissible problem of a purely exogenous drug influence.

• The new psychotropic drugs showed a certain specificity of the effect on certain disease units such as endogenous depression or schizophrenia , but at the same time there was also multiple overlapping of effects, the so-called effect spectra . Psychotropic drugs showed both antidepressant and antipsychotic subcomponents in schizophrenia. This gave rise to a certain skepticism towards a treatment recommendation, which was only based on the dosage, to avoid individual, specifically undesirable side effects, such as Parkinson’s, as they are e.g. B. was represented by F. A. Freyhan and Hans-Joachim Haase ( neuroleptic threshold ). The atypical neuroleptics also relativized these views and confirmed the initial skepticism.
• On the other hand, a specific pharmacological influenceability suggested the assumption of constitutionally conditioned factors. This group of proponents of drug treatment of target symptoms argued with the example of diabetes , which can be treated equally successfully with drugs ( antidiabetic drugs ) monosymptomatic (i.e. related only to blood sugar level). However, non-drug treatment is also indicated for diabetes.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Uwe Henrik Peters : Lexicon of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Medical Psychology. 6th edition. Urban & Fischer, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-437-15061-6 , p. 619 (online)
2. ^ Otfried K. Linde : Pharmacopsychiatry in the course of time. Experiences and results . Tilia, Klingenmünster 1988, ISBN 3-9801756-0-X ; to Stw. "F. A. Freyhan and Hans-Joachim Haase ", pp. 141, 142, 246, 336.