Tardive dyskinesia: developmental factors.

Tardive dyskinesia (TD) is an involuntary movement disorder predominantly the result of long-term neuroleptic administration. Several factors have been studied with conflicting results. In this paper, the authors compare a group of 17 TD patients with 17 non-TD controls to delineate possible etiological factors in the development of this syndrome. Factors like total neuroleptic and antiparkinsonian medication intake and organicity were not different in the groups. Only drug-free periods in the past history of TD patients were found to be statistically more significant (P less than 0.025) in these patients than in non-TD controls.