[Treatment of attention deficit disorders in adulthood using psychostimulants and low-dose neuroleptics--a critical case report].

Psychiatric research and therapy recently evinced increasing interest in patients suffering from attention deficit disorder. "Attention deficit disorder" is a category of mental disorders listed in DSM III, with a separate diagnostic subgroup for attention deficit disorders persisting in adults who had been hyperkinetic in childhood ("attention deficit disorder-residual type"); however, this does not feature in a corresponding manner in the ICD 9 version. Since there are practically no therapy studies in existence within the ICD range that can be relevant for such disorders, we studied the treatment of an adult patient with the psychostimulant fenetylline under clinical conditions and found a significant improvement in attention performance. However, on integration in a long-term day-clinic rehabilitation programme we found that low-dose neuroleptic treatment was on the whole of greater benefit than fenetylline treatment.